
Class . 

Book 



THE STANDARD SERIES, y ; t f/~ pi 



A COMMENTARY 



ON 



THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE 



^ . BY 

f/ godet, 

DOCTOR AND PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY, NEUCHATEL. 



"Y 



TRANSLATED FROM THE SECOND FRENCH EDITION BY 

E". W. SHALDERS and M. D. CUSIN. 



WITH PREFACE AND NOTES TO THE AMERICAN EDITION RY 
JOHN HALL, D.D. 

St,*) Ith* 

New York: 
I. K. FUNK & CO. 

1881. 

7T 



**$ 



Copyright, 1881, 
By I. K. FUNK & CO. 



Reprinted by special arrangement with T. & T. CLARK (Edinburgh Publishers). 



PREFACE OF THE AMERICAN EDITOR. 

The immediate occasion for the issue of a separate commentary on Luke's Gospel 
is found in the fact that from it are taken the Sabbath-school lessons of the Inter- 
national uniform series for the former half of the year on which we are so soon to enter. 
When it is remembered how many millions of pupils receive instruction according 
to this widely- accepted arrangement, it will not seem unimportant that hundreds of 
thousands of teachers— many of them busily engaged in ordinary life — should have 
all possible aid in the work of preparing themselves to teach. Who does not crave 
a blessing on them in their self-denying work ? Let us ask that He whose word they 
employ as the educating spiritual power, will make this work one of the forms in 
\ch the blessing will come to them. 

But it is not only such Christian laborers who are now interested in securing aid to 
•ill understanding of Luke's Gospel. It is a matter for true rejoicing that, as the 
ool of the Sabbath is in closest connection with the Church, and doing a part of 
Church's work, ministers labor in so many forms to increase the power of their 
low-toilers by printed and oral exposition of the lessons, and in many instances by 
.tematic treatment of the coming Sabbath-school lesson at the week-day service. 
J as is done in many cases where ministers are far removed from libraries and from 
; 3 stimulus of literary fellowship, and where also the means at their disposal make" 
difficult for them to procure expensive theological or exegetical works. To bring 
oh within their easier reach is not unworthy of effort : their power for good as 
ligious educators is thus increased in this and in every other department of their 
fficult but beneficent labors. 
At first sight it might seem as if the commentary of M. Godet were too voluminous 
and too comprehensive in its plan to be of use to Sabbath-school teachers. But there 
are considerations to be taken into account on the other side, (a) No one un- 
acquainted practically with this great agency of our time has any idea of the im- 
mense advance in biblical knowledge made during the past decade, in which uniform- 
ity of topic enabled publishing houses and societies to provide the best help for 
teachers. (6) To keep a high standard of attainment and effort before this great body 
of laborers is desirable in itself. That all do not reach the ideal qualification is no 
reason for withdrawing the means toward it which a certain proportion can and will 
employ, (c) The ideas of Paulus, Strauss, Renan and other authors of similar ten- 
dency are being diffused, and are presented with more or less show of learning, and 
especially of " culture" and " enlightenment," by many who do not have them from 
the originals, and to many who never come in contact with the works as a whole, 
but only in the unqualified eulogies which accompany their names when they are 
being used against evangelical interpretation. 

It is desirable in the highest degree that intelligent Christians who are teachers of 
others should know of an " antidote" to the " bane" of what Godet concisely calls 
"criticism" throughout his work. This consideration will reconcile any intelligent 
reader who has learned to identify himself with the cause of the truth to many 
portions of this commentary devoted to the exposure of the shallow, arbitrary, incon- 
sistent, and arrogant way in which Rationalism deals with Scripture. It is good for 
such readers to understand that, though not themselves able to grapple with such 



IV COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

critics, nor indeed called upon to do it, they have been dealt with, not only by the 
devout but by the learned, and that here as elsewhere, if a little scholarship leads 
away from intelligent simple faith, more scholarship brings back to it. That Greek, 
Latin, and Hebrew are quoted will not be an objection to the work, especially as a 
translation for the most part accompanies the quotations. 

Not at all as though the present writer were qualified and entitled, by position 
or by attainments, to commend Professor Godet's work, but with the view to deepen 
hopeful and expectant interest in it at the outset, a few considerations suggested by a 
very thorough and careful reading of every page of it are here concisely stated. In 
the Protestant churches of France and Switzerland we cannot but feel on many 
grounds a deep interest. This work has been among them — as the work of one of 
their own children — for nearly twelve years, with ever- widening influence for good. 
There is no name among them more trusted than that of its author, and that name is 
now a possession of all the churches. He had already proved his capacity for such 
a task as the interpretation of Luke, by his previous work on John's Gospel, and he 
felt the importance and the fitness of following up that work by a commentary on 
one of the Synoptists. 

There are many reasons why such a writer should decide on Luke when he has 
to make a choice. Luke's is the Gospel for the Gentiles ; it is the Gospel in which 
Jesus is seen as the Saviour of men as men. It is marked (as Bernard in his admira- 
ble Bampton lectures on the "Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament" has 
shown) by " breadth of human sympathy and special fitness for the Gentile mind," 
just as is that of Matthew for the Jew inquiring after the evidences of Christ's 
Messiahship, and that of John for the Christian, forced by the progress of thought to 
discriminate between the truth of Christianity and the refinements eagerly and often 
amicably identified in form with its divine elements. 

Professor Godet has not written for professed theologians, nor has he aimed at 
embodying in his work those devout reflections of which Scott, Matthew Henry, and — 
in their own peculiar way — the commentaries edited by Lange, are depositories. He 
has aimed at giving the connection and meaning of the narrative, and as he proceeds, 
at brushing aside the cobwebs which Rationalist or mythical interpreters heap on the 
inspired page. He does not ignore the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, enjoyed by the 
writers, but at the same time he is not afraid to follow the critics as they examine and 
pronounce upon the details of that human side, which we have in the written, as we 
have also in the Incarnate, Word. 

If it be alleged, as it may truly be, that our author's argument is often subtle, 
especially when dealing with the class of questions belonging to the harmony of the 
Gospels, and the assumption of one original document from which the Synoptists 
culled at pleasure, it is also true that they are convincing. The student of the book 
will moreover be rewarded for the time and pains bestowed on "the argument, by the 
knowledge of many an unintended corroboration of Gospel narrative, interesting in 
this relation, and often interesting on its own account. Examples may be cited, like 
the College of Rome in the days of the Emperor (p. 11), which had supervision 
of physicians, and the license of which implied literary culture and professional at- 
tainment on the part of its possessor. The " beloved physician" is, it might have 
been presumed beforehand, in these respects just such as we are bound to infer from 
his writings. But the discussion in which our author, in pursuit of his plan, fre- 
quently engages has many incidental attractions to a lover of God's truth. If Ration- 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. V 

alism be well founded, then absolute agreement ought to mark its conclusions, and 
perfect harmony should prevail among its exponents. Professor Godet never shrinks 
from showing how widely apart the very men go who allege that the whole thing is 
so plain — so remote from the region of the mysterious and supernatural — that it must 
appear at once to any enlightened intellect. (See for illustration pp. 24-26 ; 144, 
145, etc.) 

Nor is the discussion — commonly thrown into the form of notes — unrelieved by 
occasional flashes of sarcasm and irony. We should infer from his book that Pro- 
fessor Godet adds to power of grouping, of ingenious and exact combination (see 
pp. 43, 109), a certain quickness of wit, only exercised here indeed when the provo- 
cation is undoubted. " Our evangelists," says he (p. 240) " could never have antici- 
pated that they would ever have such perverse interpreters." 

On the other hand, the freshness and force of his own interpretations — as in the 
turning of " the hearts of the fathers to the children" (p. 49), and the deputation 
from John the Baptist (pp. 220-224)— find an appropriate vehicle 1 in clear, vivacious, 
and often eloquent language. See as illustration the amplification of the parabolic 
language regarding " new wine and old bottles" (p. 180). Even as a bright thought 
or an unexpected felicitous phrase in the most earnest sermon will sometimes sur- 
prise the hearer into a smile, so the keenness of analysis (see p. 147) and the detec- 
tion of nice evidences and apologetic considerations (as in \yp. 57, 66, 101, 
etc.) will often touch the mind of a reader as with a pleasant surprise. Nor is there 
wanting a fine suggestiveness in many of his paragraphs, as when he calls demoniacal 
possession the caricature of divine inspiration. How much of that awful antithesis 
runs through revelation, as in the " mystery of godliness" and the " mystery of 
iniquity," the Christ and the Antichrist ! Satan is truly in many things the ape of 
Deity. 

The power of keen analysis of Professor Godet, of which an illustration may be 
seen on p. 147, will be found usefully employed in the concluding and very valuable 
portion of his work, when, having gone over the Gospel exegetically, he comes to 
deal formally with the divergent theories of Rationalism on the origin and objects of 
the four Gospels. It may be thought, possibly, by some, that it is enough to over- 
throw views contradictory of one another, and of vital principles, and that one is 
under no obligation to provide a genesis of these inspired records. But so long as 
men will ask after the 7iow, within certain limits an answer will be attempted ; and 
that of this volume does not transcend the limits of modesty and reverence. The 
Church, in various ways, including works like this, can " move" and " induce" to a 
" high and reverend esteem of the Holy Scriptures ;" but of the Gospels this is em- 
phatically true, that " the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, 
the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is 
to give glory to God), the full discovery made of the only way of man's salvation, 
the many other incomparable excellences, and the entire perfection thereof," are 
the arguments by which they " abundantly evidence themselves to be the Word of 
God." 

It could hardly be supposed that no phrase in a work like this, and coming to us 
through a translation, would invite criticism. The author's views of the Parou&ia, 
which Greek word our continental friends are fond of using for the " coming" (Matt. 
24 : 3 ; 1 Cor. 15 : 23), applied to Christ, are not formally stated ; but there are 
intimations of their nature, as on p. 406, which would not satisfy a large portion of 



VI COMMENTAEY OK ST. LUKE. 

the evangelical churches. It is possible, however, that a calm and orderly statement 
of these opinions would make a different impression. This we infer particularly from 
declarations made on p. 452, which appear to be at variance with those commonly 
held by the advocates of two resurrections, divided by an interval more or less de- 
fined in their representations. It is to be remembered also that our author, in dealing 
with the Tubingen school, is forced to discuss with great freedom what may be called 
the human side of the origin of the Gospels. This may account for such an in- 
felicitous phrase as " chronological error" on p. 116. It must not be forgotten that, 
as devout scientists may discuss the mode of producing our existing world without 
questioning its divine origin, or ignoring a Creator, so reverent scholarship may ex- 
amine the processes by which holy oracles come to us, without impugning the fact 
that they are the utterances of the Divine Teacher, given by inspiration of the Holy 
Ghost. The mode of inspiration will probably remain a mystery ; but that limitation 
in the matter of our knowledge will no more put it in doubt as a fact, in a candid 
mind, than ignorance of the process it details will imply question of the regenera- 
tion by the Holy Ghost. In both mysterious and gracious works the wind bloweth 
where it listeth, and we hear the sound and reap the benefits, but cannot tell whence 
it cometh or whither it goeth. 

While Sabbath-school teachers will not, for the most part, follow with interest the 
examination of the views of Bleek, Baur, Weiss, Klosterman, Holtzmann, and others, 
we do not doubt that they will be read with interest by ministers. They who love and 
teach definite truth will be "able to understand how an evangelical prophet may break 
into sarcasm (as on p. 435) while giving articulate form to the designs of Christ's 
enemies. They will appreciate such clear statement as they will find on pp. 435-6 ; 
such points as that made regarding the Sabbath at p. 450, and the treatment of the 
current objection founded on the references to Annas and Caiaphas (p. 480). The 
analysis of our Lord's use of John's baptism in his struggle with his truculent foes 
is an admirable illustration of the author's power to place himself in the midst of the 
conflict waged by the Truth incarnate against sacerdotalism and perverted and par- 
tisan zeal. One may hesitate to take the net cast on the other side, as pointing to 
the ingathering of the heathen, just as the conclusions suggested on p. 495 may be 
left among the open questions without lessening admiration for the author's pains- 
taking ingenuity. Nor, finally, can any attentive reader fail to notice the wealth 
of allusion and the variety of sources whence light is made to shine on the sacred 
pages ; as, for example (p. 563), in dealing with the evangelist's differences in forms 
of speech, when Basil the Great is adduced as reporting that "down to his time 
(fourth century) the Church possessed no written liturgy for the Holy Supper— the 
sacramental prayers and formulae were transmitted by unwritten tradition." 

It is with great satisfaction, then, that thepresent writer wishes God-speed, by this 
prefatory note, to a volume which is at once learned and reverent, distinct in its ex- 
hibition of the positive truth, and vigorously controversial, in which the clearest esti- 
mate of the several Gospels is complemented by just views of Him of whose many- 
sided excellency and glory they are the fourfold presentation. 

The work, it is hardly needful to say, is unabridged, every Greek and Hebrew word 
being reproduced. Only such brief notes (indicated by his initials) as might save Sab- 
bath-school teachers from misapprehension — ministerial readers do not require them—- 
have been added by the writer, and these not without hesitation. It is hoped that this 
issue in popular form of one of the Messrs. Clark's publications— by which such 
service has been rendered to Christian literature— will call attention to their other 
translations in quarters where they have not yet gone. It is hardly needful to say 
that Messrs. Scribner, the only house in America that has sought to make a market 
for the work (and therefore entitled to be consulted) give their full assent to this issue 
—an assent that will be appreciated by those who desire to send the results of the 
ripest scholarship among all classes of Christian students and laborers. 

J. HAUi. 

Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York, 
December, 1880. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 

A tear and half has passed away — and how swiftly ! — since the 'publication of 
this Commentary, and already a second edition has become necessary. I bless the 
Lord for the acceptance which this work has met with in the churches of Switzer- 
land and of France, and I hail it as a symptom of that revived interest in exegetical 
studies, which has always appeared to me one of their most urgent needs. 1 tender 
my special thanks to the authors of those favorable reviews which have given effect- 
ual aid toward the attainment of this result. 

Almost every page of this second edition bears the traces of corrections in the 
form of my former work ; but the substance of its exegesis and criticism remains the 
same. Of only one passage, or rather of only one term {second-first, 6 : 1), has the 
interpretation been modified. Besides that, 1 have made a number of additions 
occasioned by the publication of two works, one of which 1 have very frequently 
quoted, and the other as often controverted. I refer to M. Gess' book, " Sur la 
Personne et l'CEuvre de Christ" (first part), and to "La Vie de Jesus" by M. Keim 
(the last two volumes). 

In a recent article of the " Protestantische Kirchenzeitung, " M. Holtzmann has 
challenged my critical standpoint as being determined by a dogmatic prepossession. 
But has he forgotten the advantage which Strauss took in his first ' ' Vie de Jesus' ' 
of the hypothesis of Gieseler, which I have defended ? The reader having the whole 
before him will judge. He will see for himself whether the attempt to explain in a 
natural and rational way the origin of the three synoptical texts by means of common 
written sources is successful. There is one fact especially which still waits for 
explanation — namely, the Aramaisms of Luke. These Aramaisms are met 
with not only in passages which belong exclusively to this Hellenistic writer, but 
also in those which are common to him and the other writers, who were of Jewish 
origin, and in whose parallel passages nothing of a similar kind is to be found ! This 
fact remains as a rock against which all the various hypotheses I have controverted 
are completely shattered, and especially that of Holtzmann. May not the somewhat 
ungenerous imputation of the Professor of Heidelberg, whose earnest labors no one 
admires more than myself, have been inspired by a slight feeling of wounded self- 
esteem ? 

And now, may this Commentary renew its course with the blessing of the Lord, 
to whose service it is consecrated ; and may its second voyage be as prosperous and 
short as the first ! F. G. 

Neuchatel, August, 1870. 



EXTRACTS FROM THE PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 

A Commentary on the Gospel of John remains an unfinished work so long as it is 
left unaccompanied by a similar work on at least one of the synoptical Gospels. Of 
these three writings, the Gospel of Luke appeared to me best fitted to serve as a com- 
plement to the exegetical work which I had previously published, because, as M. 
Sabatier has well shown in his short but substantial ' ' Essai sur les Sources de la Vie 
de Jesus," Luke's writing constitutes, in several important respects, a transition 
between the view taken by John and that which forms the basis of the synoptical 
literature.* 

The exegetical method pursued is very nearly the same as in my preceding Com- 
mentary. I have not written merely for professed theologians ; nor have I aimed 
directly at edification. This work is addressed, in general, to those readers of cul- 
ture, so numerous at the present day, who take a heart-felt interest in the religious and 
critical questions which are now under discussion. To meet their requirements, a 
translation has been given of those Greek expressions which it was necessary to 
quote, and technical language has as far as possible been avoided. The most ad- 
vanced ideas of modern unbelief circulate at the present time in all our great centres 
of population. In the streets of our cities, workmen are heard talking about the con- 
flict between St. Paul and the other apostles of Jesus Christ. We must therefore en- 
deavor to place the results of a real and impartial Biblical science within reach of all. 
I repeat respecting this Commentary what I have already said of its predecessor : it 
has been written, not so much with a view to its being consulted, as read. 

From the various readings, I have had to select those which had a certain value, 
or presented something of interest. A commentary cannot pretend to supply the 
place of a complete critical edition such as all scientific study requires. Since I 
cannot in any way regard the eighth edition of Tischendorf 's text just published as 
a standard text, though 1 gratefully acknowledge its aid as absolutely indispensable, 
1 have adopted the received text as a basis in indicating the various readings ; but I 
would express my earnest desire for an edition of the Byzantine text that could be 
regarded as a standard authority. 

Frequently I have contented myself with citing the original text of the ancient 
manuscripts, without mentioning the changes made in it by later hands ; bat 
whenever these changes offered anything that could be of any interest, I have in- 
dicated them. 

If I am asked with what scientific or religious assumptions I have approached 
this study of the third Gospel, I reply, With these two only : that the authors of our 
Gospels were men of good sense and good faith. 

* The publishers intend, if these volumes on Luke meet with a favorable recep- 
tion, to bring out M. Godet's celebrated Commentary on John in an English dress. 
Indeed, they would have followed the author's order of publication, but that they 
waited to take advantage of a second edition, which is preparing for the press. — 
Trans. 



CONTENTS. 



FAGS 

INTRODUCTION 1-32 

Section I.— Traces of the Existence of the Third Gospel in the Primitive Church 1 

Section IL— The Author .10 

Section III. — Composition of the Third Gospel 18 

Section IV.— Sources of the Third Gospel 21 

Section V.— Preservation of the Third Gospel 29 

The Title of the Gospel 32 

The Prologue, 1 : 1-4 33 



FIRST PAET. 

The Narratives op the Infancy, 1 : 5-2 : 52 41-104 

First Narrative : Announcement of the Birth of John the Baptist, 1 : 5-25 43 

Second Narrative : Announcement of the Birth of Jesus, 1 : 26-38 53 

Third Narrative : Mary's Visit to Elizabeth, 1 : 39-56 59 

Fourth Narrative : Birth and Circumcision of John the Baptist, 1 : 57-80 67 

Fifth Narrative : Birth of the Saviour, 2 : 1-20 .* 73 

Sixth Narrative : Circumcision and Presentation of Jesus, 2 : 21-40 84 

Seventh Narrative : The Child Jesus at Jerusalem, 2 : 41-52 90 

General Considerations on Chaps. 1 and 2 94 



SECOND PAKT. 

The Advent of the Messiah, 3 : 1-4 : 13 105-145 

First Narrative : The Ministry of John the Baptist, 3 : 1-20 105 

Second Narrative : The Baptism of Jesus, 3 : 21, 22 117 

On the Baptism of Jesus 121 

Third Narrative : The Genealogy of Jesus, 3 : 23-38 126 

Fourth Narrative : The Temptation, 4 : 1-13 133 

On the Temptation 142 



THIRD PART. 

The Ministry of Jesus in Galilee, 4 : 14-9 : 50 146-281 

FirstCycle: Visits to Nazareth and Capernaum, 4 : 14-44 148 

On the Miracles of Jesus 162 

Second Cycle : From the Calling of the First Disciples to the Choice of the Twelve, 

5:1-6:11 163 

Third Cycle : From the Choice of the Twelve to their First Mission, 6 : 12-8 : 56 188 

Fourth Cycle : From the Sending forth of the Twelve to the Departure from Galilee, 

9:1-50 252 



X CONTENTS. 

FOURTH PART. 

PAGE 

The Journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, 9:51-19:27 283-423 

First Cycle : The Departure from Galilee— First Days of the Journey, 9 : 51-13 : 21 288 

Second Cycle : New Series of Incidents in the Journey, 13 : 22-17 : 10 359 

Third Cycle : The Last Scenee in the Journey, 17 : 11-19 : 27 401 

FIFTH PART. 

The Sojourn at Jerusalem, 19 : 28-21 : 38 424-456 

First Cycle : The Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, 19 : 28-44 424 

Second Cycle : The Reign of Jesus in the Temple, 19 : 45-21 : 4 428 

Third Cycle : The Prophecy of the Destruction of Jerusalem, 21 : 5-38 443 



SIXTH PART. 

The Passion, 22 and 23 457-501 

First Cycle : The Preparation for the Passion, 22 : 1-46 457 

Second Cycle: The Passion, 22 : 47-23 : 46 476 

Third Cycle : Close of the History of the Passion, 23 : 47-56 496 

Conclusion regarding the Day of Christ's Death 499 



SEVENTH PART. 

The Resurrection and Ascension, 24 502-517 

Of the Resurrection of Jesus 511 

Of the Ascension 515 



CONCLUSION. 

Chap. I.— The Characteristics of the Third Gospel 518 

Chap, n.— The Composition of the Third Gospel 536 

Chap. DTI.— The Sources of Luke, and the Relation of the Synoptics to one another 549 

Chap. IV.— The Beginnings of the Church 567 



INTKODUCTIOST. 

The Introduction of a Biblical Commentary is not designed to solve the various 
questions relating to the origin of the book under consideration. This solution 
must be the result of the study of the book itself, and not be assumed beforehand. 
The proper work of introduction is to prepare the way for the study of the sacred 
book ; it should propose questions, not solve them. 

But there is one side of the labor of criticism which may, and indeed ought to be 
treated before exegesis — the historical. And by this we understand : 1. The study of 
such facts of ecclesiastical history as may throw light upon the time of publication 
and the sources of the work which is to engage our attention ; 2. The review of the 
various opinions which have been entertained respecting the origin of this book, par- 
ticularly in modern times. The first of these studies supplies exegetical and critical 
labor with its starting-point ; the second determines its aim. The possession of these 
two kinds of information is the condition of the maintenance and advancement of 
science. 

This introduction, then, will aim at making the reader acquainted with — 

I. The earliest traces of the existence of our Gospel, going back as far as possible in 
the history of the primitive Church. 

II. The statements made by ancient writers as to the person of the author, and the 
opinions current at the present day on this point. 

III. The information furnished by tradition respecting the circumstances in which 
this writing was composed (its readers, date, locality, design), as well as the different 
views which criticism has taken of these various questions. 

IV. The ideas which scholars have formed of the sources whence the author derived 
the subject-matter of his narrations. • 

V. Lastly, the documents by means of which the text of this writing has been pre- 
served to us. 

An introduction of this kind is not complete without a conclusion in which the 
questions thus raised find their solution. This conclusion should seek to combine 
the facts established by tradition with the results obtained from exegesis. 

SEC. I. — TRACES OP THE EXISTENCE OP THE THIRD GOSPEL IN THE PRIMITIVE 

CHURCH. 

We take as our starting-point the middle of the second century, and our aim is not 
to come down the stream, but to ascend it. It is admitted, indeed, that at this epoch 
our Gospel was universally known and received, not only in the great Church (an 
expression of Celsus, about 150), but also by the sects which were detached from it. 

This admission rests on some indisputable quotations f ryn this book in Theophilus 
of Antioch (about 170) and Irenaeus (about 180), and in the " Letter of the Churches 
of Lyons and Vienne" (in 177) ; on the fact, amply verified by the testimony of 
Clement of Alexandria, that the Gnostic Heracleon had published a commentary on 
the Gospel of Luke as well as on the Gospel of John (between 175-195) ; * on the 

* See, for the fact, Grabe, " Spicilegium, " sec. ii. t. i. p. 8 ; and for the date, 
Lipsius, " Die Zeit des Marcion und des Heracleon," in Hilgenf eld's " Zeitschrift," 
1867. 



2 COMMENTAEY OK ST. LUKE. 

very frequent use which Valentinus, or at least writers of his school, made of this 
Gospel ; lastly, on numerous quotations from Luke, acknowledged by all scholars at 
the present day, contained in the " Clementine Homilies" (about 160). It is not sur- 
prising, therefore, that Origen ranks Luke's' work among the number of those four 
Gospels admitted by all the churches under heaven, and that. Eusebius places it among 
the homologoumena of the new covenant. The only matter of importance here is to 
investigate that obscure epoch, the first half of the second century, for any indica- 
tions which may serve to prove the presence and influence of our Gospel. We meet 
with them in four departments of inquiry— in the field of heresy, in the writings of 
the Fathers, in the pseudepigraphical literature, and lastly, in the biblical writings. 

1. Heresy. — Marcion, Cerdo, Basilides. 

Marcion, a son of a bishop of Pontus, who was excommunicated by his own father, 
taught at Rome from 140-170.* He proposed to purify the Gospel from the Jewish 
elements which the twelve, by reason of their education and Israelitish prejudices, 
had necessarily introduced into it. In order more effectually to remove this alloy, he 
taught that the God who created the world and legislated for the Jews was different 
from the supreme God who revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, and was only an 
inferior and finite being ; that for this reason the Jewish law rested exclusively on 
justice, while the Gospel was founded on charity. According to him, St. Paul alone 
had understood Jesus. Further, in the canon which Marcion formed, he only 
admitted the Gospel of Luke (on account of its affinity with the teaching of Paul) 
and ten epistles of this apostle. But even in these writings he felt himself obliged to 
suppress certain passages ; for they constantly assume the divine character of the Old 
Testament, and attribute the creation of the visible universe to the God of Jesus 
Christ. Marcion, in conformity with his ideas about matter, denied the reality of 
the body of Jesus ; and on this point, therefore, he found himself in conflict with 
numerous texts of Paul and Luke. The greater part of the modifications of Luke's 
text which were exhibited, according to the statements of Tertullian and Epiphanius, 
in the Gospel used by Marcion and his adherents, are to be accounted for in this 
way. 

Notwithstanding this, the relation between the Gospel of Luke and that of this 
heretic has in modern times been represented in a totally different light. And the 
reason for this is not hard to find. The relation which we have just pointed out 
between these two writings, if clearly made out, is sufficient to prove that, at the 
time of Marcion's activity, Luke's Gospel existed in the collections of apostolic 
writings used in the churches, and to compel criticism to assign to this writing both 
ancient authority and a very early origin. Now this is just what the rationalistic 
school was not disposed to admit, f Consequently, Semler and Eichhorn in the past 
century, and, with still gf%ater emphasis, Ritschl, Baur, and Schwegler in our time, 
have maintained that the priority belonged to the Gospel of Marcion, that this work 
was the true primitive Luke, and that our canonical Luke was the result of a retouch- 

* Lipsius, " DieZeit des Marcion und des Heracleon, " in Hilgenf eld's " Zeitschr." 
1867. 

f Hilgenf eld himself points out the purely dogmatic origin of this rationalistic 
opinion : " This opinion," he says, " has misapprehended the true tendency of the 
Gospel of Marcion, through a desire to assign to the canonical text (to our Luke) the 
most recent date possible" (" Die Evangelien," p. 27). 



COMMENTARY ON" ST. LUKE. 3 

ing of this more ancient work, accomplished in the second century in the sense of a 
modified Paulinism. We must do justice, however, to this critical school. No one 
has labored more energetically to rectify this erroneous opinion, tentatively brought 
forward by several of its adherents. Hilgenfeld, and above all Volkmar, have suc- 
cessfully combated it, and Ritschl has expressly withdrawn it (" Theol. Jahrb. X.," p. 
528, et seg.) ; Bleek (" Einl. in. d. N. T.," p. 122 etseq.) has given an able summary of 
the whole discussion. We shall only bring forward the following points, which seem 
to us the most essential : 

1. The greater part of the differences which must have distinguished the Gospel 
of Marcion from our Luke are to be explained either as the result of his Gnostic 
system, or as mere critical corrections. Thus, Marcion suppressed the first two 
chapters on the birth of Jesus— a retrenchment which suited his Docetism ; also in 
the passage Luke 13 : 28, " When you shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all 
the prophets in the kingdom of God," he read, " When you shall see tliejust enter into 
the kingdom of heaven," which alone answered to his theory of the old covenant; 
in the same way also, for the words of Jesus in Luke 16 : 17, " It is easier for heaven 
and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail," Marcion read, " than that one tittle 
of the letter of my words should fail." In both these instances, one must be blind not 
to see that it was Marcion who modified the text of Luke to suit his system, and not 
the reverse. Again, we read that the Gospel of Marcion began in this way : " In the 
fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, Jesus descended to Capernaum" 
(naturally, from heaven, without having passed through the human stages of birth 
and youth) ; then came the narrative of the first sojourn at Capernaum, just as it is 
related Luke 4 : 31 et seq.; and after that, only in the inverse order to that which 
obtains in our Gospel, the narrative of the visit to Nazareth, Luke 4 : 16 et seq. Is it 
not clear that such a beginning could not belong to the primitive writing, and that 
the transposition of the two narratives which follow was designed to do away with 
the difficulty presented by the words of the inhabitants of Nazareth (Luke 4 : 23), as 
Luke places them, before the sojourn at Capernaum ? The narrative of Marcion was 
then the result of a dogmatic and critical revision of Luke 3 : 1, 4 : 31, 4 : 16 arid 23. 

2. It is a well-known fact that Marcion had falsified the Epistles of Paul by an 
exactly similar process. 

3. Marcion 's sect alone availed themselves of the Gospel used by this heretic. This 
fact proves that this work was not an evangelical writing already known, which the 
author of our Luke modified, and which Marcion alone had preserved intact. 

From all this, a scientific criticism can only conclude that our Gospel of Luke was 
in existence before that of Marcion, and that this heretic chose this among all the 
Gospels which enter into the ecclesiastical collection as the one which he could most 
readily adapt to' his system.* About 140, then, our Gospel already possessed full 
authority, the result of a conviction of its apostolic origin. 

* Zeller (in his " Apostelgeschichte") expresses himself thus : " We may admit as 
proved and generally accepted, not only that Marcion made use of an older Gospel, 
but further, that he recomposed, modified, and often abridged it, and that this older 
Gospel was essentially none other than our Luke. " This restriction "essentially" 
refers to certain passages, in which it appears to writers of the Tubingen school that 
Marciou's reading is more original than that of our canonical text. The latter, 
according to Baur and Hilgenfeld, must have been introduced with a view to counter- 
act the use which the Gnostics made of the true text. Zeller, however (p. 12 et seq.), 



4 COMMENTAKY 02* ST. LUKE. 

Marcion did not create his system himself. Before him, Cerdo, according to Theo- 
doret's account (" Haeret. fabulae," i. 24), proved by the Gospels that the just God of 
the old covenant and the good God of the new are different beings ; and he founded 
this contrariety on the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5 : 38-48 ; Luke 
6 : 27-38). The Gospel of Luke must have sustained the principal part in this 
demonstration, if at least we credit the testimony of an ancient writer (Pseudo-Tertul- 
lian, in the conclusion of the " De praescriptione haereticorum, " c. 51): "Solum 
evangelium Luca, nee tamen totum, recipit [Cerdo]." Some years, then, before 
Marcion, Cerdo sought to prove the opposition of the law to the Gospel by the written 
Gospels, especially by that of Luke. 

Basilides, one of the most ancient known Gnostics, who is usually said to have 
flourished at Alexandria about 120, assumed for himself and his son Isidore the title 
of pupils of the Apostle Matthias. The statement of Hippolytus is as follows : 
" Basilides, with Isidore, his true son and disciple, said that Matthias had transmitted 
to them orally some secret instructions which he had received from the mouth of the 
Saviour in His private teaching."* This claim of Basilides implies the circulation 
of the book of the Acts, in which alone there is any mention of the apostolate of 
Matthias, and consequently of the Gospel of Luke, which was composed before the 



2. The Fathers. — Justin, Polycarp, Clement of Bwne. 

If it is proved that about 140, and at Rome, Cerdo and Marcion made use of the 
Gospel of Luke as a book generally received in the Church, it is quite impossible to 
suppose that this Gospel was not in the hands of Justin, who wrote in this very city 
some years later. Besides, the writings of Justin allow of no doubt as to this fact ; 
and it is admitted at the present day by all the writers of that school, which makes 
exclusive claims to be critical — by Zeller, Volkmar, and Hilgenfeld.f With this 

considerably reduces the number of those passages in which Marcion is supposed to 
have preserved the true reading, and those which he retains are far from bearing the 
marks of proof. Thus, Luke 10 : 22, Marcion appears to have read ovdz\$ iyvu, no 
one hath known, instead of ovdeig ytvuaicei, no one knoweth ; and because this reading 
is found in Justin, in the " Clementine Homilies," and in some of the Fathers, it is 
inferred that our canonical text has been altered. But Justin himself also reads 
yivuotcei (" Dial, c. Tryph." c. 100). There appears to be nothing more here than an 
ancient variation. In the same passage, Marcion appears to have placed the words 
which refer to the knowledge of the Father by the Son before those which refer to 
the knowledge of the Son by the Father — a reading which is also found in the 
" Clementine Homilies." But here, again, this can only~be a mere variation of reading 
which it is easy to explain. It is of such little dogmatic importance that Irenseus, 
who opposes it critically, himself quotes the passage twice in this form (" Tischend. 
ad Matth. 11 : 27"). 

* " S. Hippolyti Refutations omnium haeresium librorum decern quae super sunt" 
(ed. Duncker et Schneidewin), L. vii. § 20. 

f " Justin's acquaintance with the Gospel of Luke is demonstrated by a series of 
passages, of which some certainly, and others very probably, are citations from this 
book" (Zeller. " Apostelgeschichte," p. 26). On the subject of a passage from the 
" Dialogue with Trypho," c. 49, Volkmar says : " Luke (3 : 16, 17) is quoted here, 
first in common with Matthew, then, in preference to the latter, literally" (" Ursprung 
unserer Ev." p. 157). " Justin is acquainted with our three synoptical Gospels, and 
extracts them almost completely" (Ibid. p. 91). "Besides Matthew and Mark . . . 
Justin also makes use of the Gospel of Luke" (Hilgenfeld, " Der Kanon," p, 25). 



COMMENTAKY OlS" ST. LUKE. 5 

admission before us, we know what the assertions of M. Nicolas are worth, which 
he does not scruple to lay before French readers, who have so little acquaintance 
with questions of this nature — such an assertion, for instance, as this : " It is impos- 
sible to read the comparisons which critics of this school [the orthodox] are accus- 
tomed to make between certain passages of Polycarp, Clement of Rome, Ignatius, 
and even Justin Martyr, and analogous passages from our Gospels, without being 
tempted to think that the cause must be very bad that can need, or that can be satis- 
fied with such arguments. "* It appears that Messrs. Zeller, Hilgenfeld, and Yolkmar 
are all implicated together in furbishing up these fallacious arguments in favor of 
orthodoxy ! Here are some passages which prove unanswerably that Justin Martyr 
used our third Gospel : Dial. c. 100, he quotes almost verbatim Luke 1 : 26-30.f Ibid, 
c. 48, and Apol. i. 34, he mentions the census of Quirinus in the very terms of Luke. 
Dial. c. 41 and 70, and Apol. i. 66, he refers to the institution of the Holy Supper 
according to the text of Luke. Dial. c. 103, he says : " In the memoirs which I say 
were composed by His apostles, and by those that accompanied them, [it is related] 
tbat the sweat rolled from Him in drops while He prayed," etc. (Luke 22 : 44). Ibid., 
Justin refers to Jesus having been sent to Herod — an incident only related by Luke. 
Ibid. c. 105, he quotes the last words of Jesus, " Father, into thy hands I commit 
my spirit/' as taken from " The Memoirs of the Apostles." f This prayer is only 
recorded by Luke (23 : 46). "We have only indicated the quotations expressly 
acknowledged as such by Zeller himself (" A postelgeschichte, " pp. 26-37). 

It is impossible, then, to doubt tbat the Gospel of Luke formed part of those apos- 
tolic memoirs quoted eighteen times by Justin, and from whieh he has derived the 
greater part of the facts of the Gospel that are mentioned by him. 

The Acts of the Apostles having been written after the Gospel, and by the same 
author (these two facts are admitted by all true criticism), every passage of the Fathers 
which proves the existence of this book at a given moment demonstrates a fortiori the 
existence of the Gospel at the same time. We may therefore adduce the following 
passage from Polycarp, which we think can only be explained as a quotation from 
the Acts : 

Acts 2 : 24. Polyc. ad Phil. c. 1. 

n Ov 6 0£o5 uveaTTjaev, \vaaZ t&S udlvaZ tov "Ov fjytipev 6 Qebc XvoaS rdS udlvaS tov 

Oavarov. adov. 

" Whom God hath raised up, having '* Whom God hath awakened, having 

loosed the [birth-] pains of death." loosed the [birth-] pains of Hades." 

The identical construction of the proposition in the two writings, the choice of 
the term lvaaZ y and the strange expression the birth-pains of death (Acts) or of Hades 
(Polyc), scarcely permit us to doubt that the passage in Polycarp was taken from 
that in the Acts.§ 

* " Etudes critiques sur le N. T." p. 5. 

\ Reference to Justin Martyr's " Dialogues" (Clarke's edition), p. 225, will show 
that vv. 26-38 are quoted in the way in which one who wished to summarize would 
reproduce. — J. H. 

X So called in c. 100, when quoting from Matt. 4 : 9, 10. — J. H. 

§ It is not impossible, certainly, that the expression udives was taken by both these 
authors from Ps. 18 : 5, or from Ps. 116 : 3, where the LXX. translate by this term 
the word ?nn, which signifies at once bonds and pains of childbirth ; but there still 
remains in the two propositions as a whole an unaccountable similarity. 



6 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

In the Epistle of Clement of Rome there is an exhortation beginning with these 
words : " Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, in which he taught equity and 
generosity ;" then comes a passage in which the texts of Matthew and Luke in the 
Sermon on the Mount appear to be combined, but where, in the opinion of Volkmar,* 
the text of Luke predominates (6 : 31, 30-38). In this same letter the Acts are twice 
quoted, first at c. 18, where mention is made of a divine testimony respecting King 
David, and there is an amalgamation of the two following Old Testament pass- 
ages : 1 Sam. 13 : 14 and Ps. 89 : 21. Now a precisely similar fusion, or very 
nearly so, is found in the book of the Acts (13 : 22). How could this almost identi- 
cal combination of two such distinct passages of the Old Testament have occurred 
spontaneously to the two writers ? 

1 Sam. 13 : 14. Ps. 89 : 20. 

"The Lord hath, sought him a man " 1 have found David my servant ; with 
after his own heart. " my holy oil have I anointed him. " 

v : , > 

Acts 13 : 22. 

" 1 have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart y which shall 
fulfil all my will." 

• Clem. Ep. ad Cor. c. 18. 

".I have found a man after my own heart, David son of Jesse ; and I have anointed 
him with eternal oil." 

The other quotation is an expression of euolgy which Clement addresses to the 
Corinthians (c. 2) : " Giving more willingly than receiving (jiaX'hov diSovreS % lan- 
pavovTei), " — a repetition of the very words of Jesus cited by Paul, Acts 20 : 35 : 
" It is more blessed to give than to receive (didovat fiaXkov % hafiPavetv)." No doubt 
these are allusions rather than quotations properly so called. But we know that this 
is the ordinary mode of quotation in the Fathers. 

It is true that the Tubingen school denies the authenticity of the Epistles of 
Clement and Polycarp, and assigns them, the fgrmer to the first quarter, and the 
latter to the second part, of the second century ; but the authenticity of the former 
in particular is guaranteed by the most unexceptionable testimonies. Although in 
many respects not at all flattering to the church of Corinth, it was deposited in the 
archives of this church, and, according to the testimony of Dionysius, bishop of 
Cornith about 170, was frequently read publicly to the congregation. Further, it is 
quoted by Polycarp, Hegesippus, and Irenasus. Now, if it is authentic, it dates, not 
from 125, as Volkmar thinks, but at latest from the end of the first century. Accord- 
ing to Hase, it belongs to between 80 and 90 ; according to Tischendorf , it dates from 
69, or, less probably, from 96. For our part, we should regard this last date as most 
probable. In any case, we see that the use of Luke's writings in this letter confers a 
very high antiquity on their diffusion and authority. 

3. The Pseudepigraphical Writings.— Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. 

Among the writings of Jewish or Jewish-Christian origin which antiquity has 
bequeathed to us, there is one which appears to have been composed by a Christian 

* " The text of Matthew differs most, while Luke's text furnishes the substance 
of the developed thought" (" Urspr.," p. 138). 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 7 

Jew, desirous of bringing his fellow-countrymen to the Christian faith. With this 
view he represents the twelve sons of Jacob as speaking on their death-beds, and 
assigns to each of them a prophetic discourse, in which they depict the future lot of 
their people, and announce the blessings to be conferred by the gospel. Contrary to 
the opinion of M. Reuss, who places the composition of this work after the middle 
of the second century,* de Groot and Langen think that it belongs to the end of the 
first or the beginning of the second. f As this book alludes to the first destruction of 
Jerusalem by the Romans in 70, but in no way refers to the second by Adrian in 135, 
it must, it would seem, date from the interval between these two events. It contains 
numerous quotations from Luke as well as from the other evangelists, but the fol- 
lowing passage is particularly important : " In the last days, said Benjamin to hissons> 
there shall spring from my race a ruler according to the Lord, who, after having heard 
hi6 voice, shall spread a new light among the heathen. He shall abide in the syna- 
gogues of the heathen to the end of the ages, and shall be in the mouth of their chiefs 
as a pleasant song. His work and his word shall be written in the holy books. He shall 
be chosen of God for eternity. My father Jacob hath told me about him who is to 
make up for the deficiencies of my race." The Apostle Paul was of the tribe of 
Benjamin, and there is an allusion in this passage to his work as described in the 
book of the Acts, and probably also to his epistles as containing his word. There is 
no doubt, then, that the book of the Acts is here referred to as constituting part of 
the collection of holy books (ev (3ij3X als ayiaic). This passage is thus the parallel 
of the famous As it is written, which is found in the Epistle of Barnabas, and which 
serves as a preamble, about the same time, to a quotation from the Gospel of St. 
Matthew.:}: Before the end of the first century, therefore, there were collections of 
apostolic writings in the churches, the contents of which we cannot exactly de- 
scribe : they varied, no doubt, in different churches, which were already regarded 
equally with the Old Testament as holy ; and in these, the book of the Acts, and 
consequently the Gospel of Luke, found a place. 

4. Biblical Writings.— John, Mark, Acts. 

The whole Gospel of John supposes, as we think has been proved in our Com," 
mentary upon that book, the existence of our synoptics, and their propagation in the 
Church. As to Luke in particular, 10 : 38-42 must be compared with John 11 and 
12 : 1-8 ; then 24 : 1-12 and 36-49 with John 20 : 1-18 and 19-23, where John's nar- 
rative appears to allude, sometimes even in expression, to Luke's. 

The first distinct and indubitable trace of the influence of Luke's Gospel on a 
book of the New Testament is found in the conclusion of Mark (16 : 9-20). On the 
one hand, we hope to prove that, until we come to this fragment, the composition of 
Mark is quite independent of Luke's narrative. On the other hand, it is evident that 
from this point the narrative of Mark, notwithstanding some peculiarities, is scarcely 

* " Die Gesch. der heil. Schr. N. T.," § 257. 

f De Groot, "Basilides," p. 37 ; Langen, " Das Judenthum in Palesti," 148. 

% Hilgenfeld, with all fairness, acknowledges this quotation in the Epistle of 
Barnabas and the consequences deducible from it : " We meet with the first trace of 
this application [of the notion of inspiration as in the writings of the Old Testament 
to those of the apostles] at the close of the first century, in the so-called letter of 
Barnabas, in which a sentence from the Gospel is quoted as a passage of Scripture'' 
C'DerKanon,"p. 10). 



8 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

anything but an abridged reproduction of Luke's. It is, as it has been called, the most 
clearly marked style of extract. Compare verse % and Luke 8:2; verses 10, 11, and 
Luke 24 : 10-12 ; verse 12 and Luke verses 13-22 ; verse 13, and Luke verses 33-35 ; 
verse 14a and Luke verses 36-43. It is possible also that John 20 : 1-17 may have 
had some influence on verse 9a. As to the discourse verses 15-18, and the fragment 
verses 19, 20, the author of this conclusion must have taken these from materials of 
his own. Now we know that this conclusion to Mark, from 16 : 9, was wanting, 
according to the statements of the Fathers, in a great many ancient mss. ; that it is not 
found at the present day in either of the two most ancient documents, the Sinaitic or 
Vatican ; that the earliest trace of it occurs in Irenseus ; and that an entirely differ- 
ent conclusion, bearing, however, much more evidently the impress of a later eccle- 
siastical style, is the reading of some other documents. If, then, the conclusion 
found in the received text is not from the hand of the author, still it is earlier than the 
middle of the second century. We must also admit that no considerable interval could 
have elapsed between the composition of the Gospel and the composition of this conclu- 
sion ; for the discourse, verse 15 et seq. is too original to be a mere compilation : 
further, it must have been drawn up from materials dating from the time of the 
composition of the Gospel ; and the remarkable agreement which exists between the 
ending, verses 19 and 20, and the general thought of the book, proves that whoever 
composed this conclusion had fully entered into the mind of the author. The latter 
must have been suddenly interrupted in his work ; for 16 : 8 could never have been 
the intended conclusion of his narrative. An appearance of Jesus in Galilee is 
announced (5 : 1-8), and the narrative ought to finish without giving an account of 
this. Besides, verse 9 is quite a fresh beginning, for there is an evident break of 
connection between this verse and verse 8. 

From all these considerations, it follows that at verse 8 the work was suddenly 
suspended, and that a short time after, a writer, who was still in the current of the 
author's thought, and who might have had the advantage of some materials prepared 
by him, drew up this conclusion. Now, if up to 16 : 8 the Gospel of Luke has exer- 
cised no influence on Mark's work, and if, on the contrary, from 16 : 9 there is a per- 
ceptible influence of the former on the latter, there is only one inference to be drawn 
— namely, that the Gospel of Luke appeared in the interval between the composition 
of Mark and the writing of its conclusion. In order, then, to fix the date of the pub- 
lication of our Gospel, it becomes important to know by what circumstance the author 
of the second Gospel was interrupted in his work. The only probable explanation of 
this fact, as it appears to us, is the unexpected outbreak of Nero's persecution in 
August, 64, just the time when Mark was at Rome with Peter. At the request of the 
faithful belonging to this church, he had undertaken to write the narratives of this 
apostle, in other words, the composition of our second Gospel. The persecution 
which broke out, and the violent death of his master, x^robably forced him to take 
precipitous flight from the capital. It is only necessary to suppose that a copy of the 
yet unfinished work remained iu the hands of some Roman Christian, and was 
deposited in the archives of his church, to explain how the Gospel at first got into 
circulation iu its incomplete form. When, a little while after, some one set to work to 
complete it, the Gospel of Luke had appeared, and was consulted. The work, 
finished by help of Luke's Gospel, was copied and circulated in this new form. In 
this way the existence of the two kinds of copies is explained. The year 64 would 
then be the terminus a quo of the publication of Luke. On the other hand, the writing 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 9 

of the conclusion of Mark must have preceded the publication, or at least the diffu- 
sion, of the Gospel of Matthew. Otherwise the continuator of Mark would certainly 
have given it the preference, because its narrative bears an infinitely closer resem- 
blance than Luke's to the account he was completing. The composition of the 
canonical conclusion of Mark would then be prior to the diffusion of our Matthew, 
and consequently before the close of the first century, when this writing was already 
clothed with a divine authority equal to that of the Old Testament (p. 11). Now, 
since the conclusion of Mark implies the existence of the Gospel of Luke, we see to 
what a high antiquity these facts, when taken together, oblige us to refer the com- 
position of the latter. 

The other biblical writing which presents a point of connection with our Gospel is 
the book of the Acts. From its opening verses, this writing supposes the Gospel of 
Luke already composed and known to its readers. When was the book of the Acts 
composed ? From the fact that it terminates so suddenly with the mention of Paul's 
captivity at Rome (spring 62 to 64), it has often been concluded that events had pro- 
ceeded just thus far at the time the work was composed. This conclusion, it is true, 
is hasty, for it may have been the author's intention only to carry his story as far as 
the apostle's arrival at Rome. His book was not intended to be a biography of the 
apostles generally, nor of Peter and Paul in particular ; it was the work that was 
important to him, not the workmen. Nevertheless, when we observe the fulness of 
the narrative, especially in the latter parts of the work ; when we see the author 
relating the minutest details of the tempest and Paul's shipwreck (27), and mention- 
ing even the sign of the ship which carried the apostle to Italy (28 : 11) — " A ship of 
Alexandria, whose sign was Castor and Pollux") — it cannot be reasonably maintained 
that it was a rigorous adherence to his plan which prevented his giving his readers 
some details respecting the end of this ministry, and the martyrdom of his master. 
Or might he have proposed to make this the subject of a third work ? Had he a mind 
to compose a trilogy, after the fashion of the Greek tragedians ? The idea of a third 
work might no doubt be suggested to him afterward by subsequent events ; and this 
appears to be the sense of certain obscure words in the famous fragment of Muratori. 
But it is not very probable that such an intention could have determined his original 
plan, and influenced the composition of his two former works. "What matter could 
appear to the author of sufficient importance to be placed on a level, as the subject of 
a Tphos "k6yo$, with the contents of the Gospel or the Acts ? Or, lastly, was it the 
premature death of the author which came and put an end to his labor ? There is 
no ground for this supposition. The conclusion, Acts 28 : 30 and 31, while resem- 
bling analogous conclusions at the end of each narrative in the Gospel and in the Acts, 
has rather the effect of a closing period intentionally affixed to the entire book. We 
are then, in fact, brought back to the idea that Paul's career was not yet finished 
when the author of the Acts terminated his narrative, and wrote the last two verses 
of chap. 28 ; since, were this not the case, fidelity to his plan would in no way have 
prevented his giving some details on a subject so interesting to his readers. The 
book of the Acts, therefore, does not appear to have been written very long after the 
time which forms the termination of the narrative. This conclusion, if well founded, 
applies d fortiori to the Gospel of Luke. 

To sum up : the use which was made of the third Gospel at Rome, in the middle 
of the second century, by Justin, Marcion, and his master Cerdo, and the apostolic 
authority implied in the diffusion of this work, and in the respect it enjoyed at this 



10 . COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

period, oblige us to admit its existence as early as the beginning of this century. A 
very recent book could not have been known and used thus simultaneously in the 
Church and by the sects. The place which the Acts held in collections of the sacred 
writings at the epoch of the " Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs" (toward the end 
of the first or the commencement of the second century), sends us back a little 
further, to about 80-100. Lastly, the relations of the third Gospel to Mark and the 
Acts carry us to an epoch still more remote, even as far back as the period from 64 
to 80. 

An objection to this result has been found in the silence of Papias— a silence 
which Hilgenfeld has even thought an indication of positive rejection on the part of 
this Father. But because Eusebius has only preserved the information furnished by 
Papias respecting the composition of Mark and Matthew — only a few lines altogether 
— it does not follow that Papias did not know Luke, or that, if he knew, he rejected 
him. All that can reasonably be inferred from this silence is, that Eusebius had not 
found anything of interest in Papias as to the origin of Luke's book. And what is 
there surprising in that ? Matthew and Mark had commenced their narratives with- 
out giving the smallest detail respecting the composition of their books ; Luke, on 
the contrary, in his preface, had told his readers all they needed to know. There was 
no tradition, then, current on this point, and so Papais had found nothing new to 
add to the information given by the author. 

We ought to say, in concluding this review, that we do not attach a decisive 
value to the facts we have just noticed, and that among the results arrived at there 
are several which we are quite aware are not indisputable.* Nevertheless, it has 
appeared to us that there were some interesting concidences (points de repere) which a 
careful study of the subject should not overlook. The only fact which appears to us 
absolutely decisive is the ecclesiastical and liturgical use of our Gospel in the churches 
in the middle of the second century, as it is established by Justin. If this book really 
formed part of those " Memoirs of the Apostles," which he declared to the emperor 
were publicly read every Sunday in the Christian assemblies, the apostolic antiquity 
of this book must have been a fact of public notoriety, and all the more that it did 
not bear the name of an apostle at the head of it. 

SEC. II. — THE AUTHOR. 

Under this title are included two distinct questions : I. "What do we know of the 
person designated in the title as the author of our Gospel ? II. By what ecclesiastical 
testimonies is the composition of this book traced to him, and what is their worth ? 

I. 

The person named Luke is only mentioned in certain passages of the New Testa- 
ment, and in some few brief ecclesiastical traditions. 

The biblical passages are : Col. 4 : 14, " Luke, the beloved physican, and Demas, 
greet you ;" Philem. 24, " There salute thee Epaphras, my fellow-prisoner in Christ 
Jesus ; Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, my fellow-laborers ;" 2 Tim. 4 : 11. 
" Only Luke is with me." 

* We ought to emphasize this reservation, in view of some reviews in which we 
have been blamed for dealing here too largely in hypothesis. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 11 

These passages, considered in their context, yield these results : 

1. That Luke was a Christian of Pagan origin. This is proved beyond doubt in 
the first passage by the distinction between the group of Christians ot the circumcision 
(verses 10, 11), and the following group to which Luke belongs (verses 12-14). The 
objection which has been taken to this exegetical inference, on the ground of an 
Aramaean tincture of style in many passages of Luke, has, so far as we can see, no 
force. Accordingly, St. Luke would be the only author, among those who were 
called to write the Scriptures, who was not of Jewish origin. 

2. The circumstance that his profession was that of a physician is not unimpor- 
tant ; for it implies that he must have possessed a certain amount of scientific knowl- 
edge, and belonged to the class of educated men. There existed at Rome, in the 
time of the emperors, a medical supervision ; a superior college {Collegium archiatro- 
rum) was charged with the duty of examining in every city those who desired to 
practise the healing art. Newly admitted men were placed under the direction of 
older physicians ; their modes of treatment were strictly scrutinized, and their mis- 
takes severely punished, sometimes by taking away their diploma.* For these 
reasons, Luke must have possessed an amount of scientific and literary culture above 
that of most of the other evangelists and apostles. 

3. Luke was the fellow-laborer of Paul in his mission to the heathen, a fellow- 
laborer greatly beloved (Col. 4 : 14) and faithful (2 Tim. 4 : 9-12). 

But here arises an important question. Does the connection which has just been 
proved between Paul and Luke date, as Bleek thinks, onty from the apostle's sojourn 
at Rome— a city in which Luke had long been established as a physician, and where 
he had been converted by Paul ? Or had Luke already become the companion of 
the apostle before his arrival at Rome, and had he taken part in his missionary toils 
in Greece or in Asia ? The solution of this question depends on the way in which 
we regard a certain number of passages in the Acts, in which the author passes all 
at once from the third person, they, to the form of the first person, we. If it is ad- 
mitted (1) that Luke is the author of the Acts (a question which we cannot yet deal 
with), and (2) that the author, in thus expressing himself, wishes to intimate that at 
certain times he shared the apostle's work, it is evident that our knowledge of his life 
will be considerably enriched by these passages. It is only this second question that 
we shall examine here. 

The passages of which we speak are three in number : 16 : 10-17 ; 20 : 5-31, 17 ; 
27 : 1-28, 16. Here several suppositions are possible : Either Luke, the author of 
the entire book, describes in the first person the scenes in which he was himself 
present ; or the author, either Luke or some Christian of the first age, inserts in his 
work such and such fragments of a traveller's journal kept by one of Paul's compan- 
ions — by Timothy or Silas, for example ; or, lastly, a forger of later times, with a 
view to accredit his work and make it pass for Luke's, to whom he ventures to 
attribute it, introduces into it some fragments of Luke, changing their substance and 
remodelling their form, but purposely allowing the first person to stand in these por- 
tions. The first supposition is the one that has been most generally admitted from 
ancient times ; the second has been maintained by Schleiermacher and Bleek, who 
attribute the journal, whence these portions are taken to Timothy ; also by Sen wan- 
beck, who makes it the work of Silas ; the third is the hypothesis defended by Zeller. 

* Tholuck, " Die Glaubwurdigk. der ev. Gesch." p. 149 (according to Galen). 



12 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

If the first explanation is the most ancient, it is because it is that which most 
naturally occurs to the mind. After the author, at the beginning of his book, had 
made use of the first person, "The former treatise have Imade, O Theophilus," 
would it not be evident to his readers that when, in the course of the narrative, he 
came to say we it was with the intention of indicating himself as a witness of the 
facts related ? If he had borrowed these fragments from the journal of another, 
why did he not assimilate them in form to the rest of the narrative ? Surely it was 
not difficult for such a writer as he was to change the first person into the third. It 
is maintained that the author is an unskilled writer, who does not know how to work 
up his materials ; but Zeller rightly replies that the unity of style, aim, and method 
which prevails throughout the book of the Acts, proves, on the contrary, that the 
author has made very skilful use of the documents at his disposal. De Wette him- 
self, although a supporter of Schleiermacher's theory, is obliged to acknowledge this. 
And if this is so, it is impossible to explain how the author could have allowed this 
we to stand. Besides, this explanation has to contend with other difficulties. If 
this pronoun we emanates from the pen of Timothy, how is it that it does not come 
in at the moment when Timothy enters on the scene and joins Paul and Silas? 
How is it, again, that it suddenly disappears, although Timothy continues the journey 
with Paul (from his departure from Philippi and during his entire stay in Achaia, 
Acts 18 ; comp, with 1 and 2 Thess. 1:1)? Above all, how is it that this we is 
resumed, 20 : 5, in a passage in which the writer who thus designates himself is 
expressly opposed to a number of persons, among whom figures Timothy f Bleek tries 
to draw out of this difficulty by applying the pronoun ovroi, these, verse 5, simply to 
the last two of the persons mentioned, Tychicus and Trophimus. But every one 
must feel that this is a forced explanation. As Zeller says, had this been the case, it 
would have been necessary to have said ovtoi ol <5uo, t7iese two. 

The same and even greater difficulties prevent our thinking of Silas, since, 
according to the Epistles, after their stay at Corinth, this missionary no longer 
appears in company with Paul, yet the we goes on to the end of the Acts. As to the 
opinion of Zeller, it makes the author an impostor, who determined to assume the 
mask of Luke in order the more easily to obtain credence for his history. But 
whence comes the unanimous tradition which attributes the Gospel and the Acts to 
Luke, when he is never once named in these works as their author ? In order to 
explain this fact, Zeller is obliged to have recourse to a fresh hypothesis, that the 
forger in the first instance had inscribed Luke's name at the head of his work, and 
that afterward, by some unknown accident, the name was dropped, although the 
Church had fallen completely into the snare. Can a more improbable supposition 
be imagined ? The ancient explanation, which is that of common-sense, is, after all 
these fruitless attempts, the only one scientifically admissible : the author of the Acts 
employed the pronoun we in every case in which he himself was present at the scenes 
described. 

To this exegetical conclusion only two objections of any value have been offered : 
1. The sudden character of the appearance and disappearance of the pronoun we in 
the narrative. A companion of Paul, it is said, would have indicated how it was he 
happened to be with the apostle, and why he left him. 2. Schleiermacher asks how 
a new-comer, converted only yesterday, could have expressed himself with so little 
modesty as : " immediately we endeavored . . .; the Lord had called us ..." 
(Acts 16 : 10). But how do we know that the author had not been for a long while 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 13 

connected with the apostle when he met with him at Troas (see Sec. 3) ? Besides, 
was not Timothy himself also quite a recent convert ? That the writer does not 
explain the circumstances which led to his meetings with Paul and his partings from 
him, is in accordance with that modest reticence observed by the sacred writers when- 
ever they themselves are concerned. They avoid, with a kind of shame, whatever 
might direct the attention of the reader to themselves. Obliged by fidelity to truth 
to indicate his presence wherever he formed paTt of the missionary company, the 
author could not do this in a more natural and modest way than that which dispenses 
with his naming himself.* 

On the supposition that Luke is the author of the Acts, we may supplement what 
we know about him by the information supplied by those passages in which the we is 
employed. At Troas, where he was when Paul, whom he had known perhaps long 
before (p. 21), arrived there, he joined the three missionaries, and passed with them 
into Europe. He remained at Philippi, the first church founded on this continent, 
when persecution obliged his three companions to leave the city. For the we ceases 
from this moment. Since this pronoun only reappears when Paul again comes to 
Philippi, at the end of his third journey (20 : 5), it follows that Luke remained 
attached to this church during the second and third missionary journey of the apostle, 
and that then he rejoined him in order to accompany him to Jerusalem. And as the 
we is continued to the end of the book (the interruption, 21 : 17, 26 : 32, not being 
really such), Luke must have remained in Palestine with the apostle during the time 
of his imprisonment in Caesarea. This explains the expression (27 : 1) : " And when 
it was determined we should sail into Italy." Luke, therefore, with Aristarchus 
(26 : 2), was Paul's companion in his journey to Rome. According to the Epistles, 
from that time to the end, save during those temporary absences when he was called 
away in the service of the gospel, he faithfully shared Paul's sufferings and toil. 

Before leaving the domain of Scripture, we must mention an ingenious conjecture, 
due to Thiersch, which appears to us open to no substantial objection. From these 
words, " Only Luke is with me" (2 Tim. 4 : 11), compared with what follows almost 
immediately (ver. 13), " Bring with thee the books, and especially the parchments," 
this writer has concluded that at the time Paul thus wrote he was occupied in some 
literary labor for which these manuscripts were required. In this case it must also 
be admitted that Luke, who was alone with him at the time, was not unacquainted 
with this labor, if even it was not his own. 

These results obtained from Scripture fit in without difficulty with a piece of 
information supplied by the Fathers. Eusebius and Jerome f tell us that Luke was 

* Bleek objects, further, that Luke is not mentioned in the Epistles to the Thes- 
salonians, the Corinthians, and the Philippians. But if Luke remained at Philippi, 
why should he be mentioned in the letters to the Thessalonians, which were written 
from Achaia a-little later? If be is not named in the Epistles to the Cornithians, he 
appears at least to be referred to as one of the most eminent of the evangelists of 
Greece, 2 Cor. 8 : 18 and 22 (though it is not certain that this passage refers to him). 
And what necessity was there that he should be named in these letters ? As to the 
Epistle to the Philippians, at the time when Paul wrote it, it might very well happen 
that Luke was neither at Rome nor Philippi. To Bleek's other objection, that the 
author of the Acts reckons according to the Jewish calendar, which does not suit a 
writer of heathen origin, Zeller rightly replies that " in the case of a companion of 
Paul, this was just the only natural mode of reckoning." 

f " Hist. Eccl. iii. 4 ; " De vir. illustr." c. 7. 



14 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

originally from Antioch. Meyer and De Wette see in this nothing but an exegetical 
conclusion, drawn from Acts 13 : 1, where mention is made of one Lucius exercising 
his ministry in the church at Antioch. But this supposition does very little honor to 
the discernment of these Fathers, since in this very passage Lucius is described as 
originally from Cyrene in Africa. Besides, the name Lucius (from the root lux, 
lucere) has quite a different etymology from Lucas, which is an abbreviation from 
Lucanus (as Silas from Silvanus, etc.). If Luke had really found a home at Antioch, 
we can understand the marked predilection with which the foundation of the church 
in that city is related in the Acts. In the lines devoted to this fact (11 : 20-24) there 
is a spirit, animation, and freshness which reveal the charm of delightful recollec- ' 
tions. And in this way we easily understand the manner in which the scene at 
Troas is described (16 : 10). Paul and the Gospel were old acquaintances to Luke 
when he joined the apostle at Troas. 

We cannot, on the other hand, allow any value to the statement of Origen and 
Epiphanius, who reckon Luke in the number of the seventy disciples ; this opinion 
is contrary to the declaration of Luke himself, 1 : 2. Could Luke be, according to 
the opinion referred to by Theophylact, that one of the two disciples of Emmaus 
whose name is not recorded ? This opinion appears to be a conjecture rather than a 
tradition. The historian Nicephorus Kallistus (fourteenth century) makes Luke the 
painter who transmitted to the church the portraits of Jesus and His mother. This 
information rests, perhaps, as Bleek presumes, on a confusion of our evangelist with 
some ancient painter of the same name.* We know absolutely nothing certain respect- 
ing the latter part of his life. The passage in Jerome, found in some old editions of 
the De viris, according to which Luke lived a celibate to the age of eighty-four years, 
is not found in any ancient manuscript ; it is an interpolation. Gregory Nazianzen 
(Orat. iii. Advers. Julian.) is the first who confers on him the honor of martyrdom ; 
JSTicephorus maintains that he was hanged on an olive-tree in Greece at the age of 
eighty years. These are just so many legends, the origin of which we have no 
means of ascertaining. It appears, however, that there was a widespread tradition 
that he ended his days in Achaia. For there, according to Jerome (De. vir. ill. c. 7), 
the Emperor Constantine sought for his ashes to transport them to Constantinople. 
Isidore maintains that they were brought from Bithynia. 

Is this person really the author of our third Gospel and of the Acts ? We have to 
study the testimonies on which, historically speaking, this opinion rests. 

II. 

1. At the basis of all the particular testimonies we must place the general opinion 
of the Church as expressed in its title, " according to Luke." There was but one con- 
viction on this point in the second century, from one extremity of the Church to the 
other, as we can still prove by the ancient versions in the Syriac and Latin tongues, 
the Peschito and the Italic. As to the meaning of the prep. Kara, according to, in 
this title, see the exegesis. We will only observe here, that if this preposition could 
bear the sense of "in the manner of, after the example of," in the case of Matthew 
and John, who were apostles, and therefore original authors of an evangelical tra- 

* We can only cite as critical fancies the opinion of Kohlreif, which identifies 
Luke and Silas (lucus = silva), and that of Lange, who makes Luke the same person 
as the Aristion of Papias (lucere = apioreveiv). 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 15 

dition, this explanation becomes impossible when applied to Mark and Luke, who, 
since they never accompanied Jesus, could not assume the part of creators of a 
special tradition, but could only be designated compilers. 

2. The first special testimony is implied in a passage of Justin Martyr, who, in 
reference to Jesus' sweat in Gethsemane, says : * "As that is related in the memoirs 
{aiTO[xv7i(iovevnara), which I say were composed by His apostles and by their com- 
panions." It appears to us indisputable (although criticism has sought other inter- 
pretations), that among those books which Justin possessed, and of which he speaks 
elsewhere as " the memoirs which are called Gospels," there must have been, accord- 
ing to this passage, at least two Gospels emanating from apostles, and two proceeding 
from coadjutors of the apostles. And as the incident to which this Father here 
alludes is only recorded in Luke, Justin regarded the author of this book as one of the 
men who had accompanied the apostles. 

3. In the fragment ascribed to Muratori, written about 180, and containing the 
tradition of the churches of Italy respecting the books of the New Testament, we 
read as follows : " Thirdly, the book of the Gospel according to St. Luke. This 
Luke, a physician, when Paul, after the ascension of Christ, had received him among 
his followers as a person zealous for righteousness {juris studiosum), wrote in his own 
name and according to his own judgment (ex opinione). Neither, again, had he him- 
self seen the Lord in the flesh. Carrying his narrative as far back as he could obtain 
information (proul assequi potuit), he commenced with the birth of John. " After 
having spoken of the Gospel of John, the author passes on to the Acts : " The Acts 
of all the Apostles," he says, " are written in a single book. Luke has included in 
it, for the excellent Theophilus, all that took place in his presence ; as also he clearly 
points out in a separate form (semote) not only the suffering of Peter, but further, 
Paul's departure from Rome for Spain." 

With the exception of the name of Luke, which is derived from the tradition 
received throughout the entire Church, this testimony respecting the Gospel seems 
to us nothing more than a somewhat bold reproduction of the contents of Luke's 
preface, combined with the information supplied by Col. 4 : 14 as to his profession. 
" In his own name :" that is to say, in obedience to an inward impulse, on his own 
personal responsibility ; not in the name of an apostle or a church ; an allusion to " It 
hath appeared good to me also" (1 : 3). " According to his own judgment : " an allu- 
sion to the fact that his narrative was not that of an eye-witness, but in accordance 
with the opinion he had formed of the facts by help of tradition and his own re- 
searches (1 : 2). " Neither again" had he himself seen : any more than Mark, of whom 
the author of the fragment had just spoken. The expression, "as he could obtain 
information," refers to what Luke says of the care he had taken to go back as far as 
possible, and to narrate events in the best order. The term juris studiosum (which 
Hi.' gen f eld supposes to be the translation of tov diicatov ^/iwrifv , in the original 
Greek, which he admits) might also be translated, a man skilled in questions of legal 
right ; able, consequently, to make himself useful to Paul whenever he had to deal 
with the Roman tribunals. But the term &\uTqS rather favors the sense we 
have given in our translation. If the passage relating to the Acts has been accu- 
rately rendered into Latin, or if the text of it has not been altered, we might infer 
from it that Luke had narrated, in a third work (semote, separately), the subsequent 

* "Dial. c. Tryph."c. 22. 



16 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

history of Peter and Paul. In any case, the whole testimony is remarkable for its 
very sobriety. It does not show the slightest tendency, any more than the preface 
of the evangelist himself, to ascribe divine authority to this writing. On the con- 
trary, the human aspect of the work comes out very strongly in these expressions : 
" in his own name, according to his judgment, as far as he was able to obtain informa- 
tion." Perhaps the author wished to contrast this entirely natural mode of composi- 
tion with the widely different origin of the Gospel of John, which he describes 
directly afterward. 

4. At the same period, Irenaeus expresses himself thus respecting the third Gospel 
(Adv. Haer. iii. 1) : " Luke, a companion of Paul, wrote in a book the gospel preached 
by the latter." Irenaeus quotes from our Gospel more than eighty times. This testi- 
mony and the preceding are the first two in which Luke is indicated by name as the 
author of this book. 

5. Tertullian, in his book "Against Marcion" (iv. 2), expresses himself thus: 
" Of the apostles, John and Matthew inspire our faith ; of the coadjutors of the 
apostles, Luke and Mark confirm it." He reminds Marcion "that, not only in the 
churches founded by the apostles, but in all those which are united to them by the 
bond of the Christian mystery, this Gospel of Luke has been received without con- 
tradiction (stare) from the moment of its publication, while the greater part are not 
even acquainted with that of Marcion." He says, lastly (Ibid. iv. 5), " that several 
persons of his time have been accustomed to attribute Luke's work to Paul him- 
self, as well as Mark's to !Peter." He neither pronounces for nor against this 
opinion. 

6. Origen, in a passage cited by Eusebius (H. E. vi. 25), expressed himself thus : 
" Thirdly, the Gospel according to Luke, cited approvingly (sKaivovf/evov) by Paul." 
It appears from the whole passage that he alludes, on the one hand, to the expression 
my Gospel, employed three times by Paul (Rom. 2 : 16 ; 16 : 25 ; 2 Tim. 1 : 8) ; on 
the other, to the passage 2 Cor. 8 : 18, 19, which he applied to Luke. 

7. Eusebius says (H. E. iii. 4) : " It is maintained that it is of the Gospel accord- 
ing to Luke that Paul is accustomed to speak whenever he makes mention in his 
writings of his Gospel. ' ' 

8. Jerome (De vir. ill. c. 7) also refers to this opinion, but attributes it to "some 
persons" only (quidam suspicantur). 

We have three observations to make on these testimonies. 

1. If they are somewhat late — it is only about a.d. 180 that Luke's name appears 
we must observe, on the other hand, that they are not the expression of the indi- 
vidual opinion of the writers in whose works they occur, but appear incidentally as 
the expression of the ancient, unbroken, and undisputed conviction of the entire 
Church. These writers give expression to the fact as a matter of which no one was 
ignorant. They would not have dreamed of announcing it, unless some special cir- 
cumstance had called for it. The ecclesiastical character, at once universal and he- 
reditary, of these testimonies, even when they date only from the second century 
enable us to ascertain the conviction of the first. In fact, what prevailed then was 
not individual criticism, but tradition. Clement of Alexandria, after having quoted a 
passage from the " Gospel of the Egyptians" (Strom, iii. p. 465), immediately adds : 
' ' But we have not seen this passage in the four Gospels which have been transmitted 
to us (£v toIc TrapadedofzivotS ?}/uv riaaapaiv evayyelioic).'" The Bishop Serapion having 
found, in the parish church of Rhodes, in Cilicia, a so-called Gospel of Peter, contain- 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 17 

ing Gnostic sentiments, wrote a letter to those who made use of it, a portion of which 
has been preserved by Eusebius (EL E. vi. 12, ed. Lcemmer), and it ends with these 
words : " Knowing well that such writings have not been transmitted (on to. roiavra 
[xbevdeTriypaQa] ov TrapeMpo/iev)." The traditional origin of the convictions of the 
Church respecting the origin of the sacred writings is the only explanation of their 
stability and universality. An opinion formed upon individual criticism could never 
have had these characteristics. It is very remarkable that the tradition respecting 
our Gospel is not disowned even by the ecclesiastical parties most opposed to Paul. 
Irenaeus (iii. 15) declares that the Ebionites made use of our Gospel, and we can prove 
it ourselves by the quotations from the writings of Luke which we find in the " Clem- 
entine Homilies" (ix. 22 ; xix. 2). The plot even of this religious romance is bor- 
rowed from the book of the Acts. Now, in order that parties so opposed to each other, 
as Marcion on the one hand and the Ebionites on the other, should agree in making 
use of our Gospel, the conviction of its antiquity and authority must have been very 
ancient and very firmly established (stare, Tert.). There is another fact more strik- 
ing still. The only sect of the second century which appears to have expressly 
rejected the book of the Acts, that of the Severians, took no exception to the Gospel 
of Luke. These results perfectly agree with those to which we were led by the facts 
enumerated, Sec. 1. Thus the blank that exists between the first positive testimonies 
which we meet with in the second century and the apostolic age is filled up by 
fact. 

2. It is important to observe the gradual change in the tradition which manifests 
itself during the course of the second and third centuries. The nearer we approach 
its original sources, the more sober the tradition. In the eyes of Justin, the author 
of our Gospel is simply a companion of the apostles. In the fragment of Muratori 
the same information reappears without amplification. Strictly speaking, Irenaeus 
does not go beyond this ; only he already aims to establish a connection between the 
writing of Luke and the preaching of Paul. Tertullian notices an opinion prevalent 
in his time which goes much farther— namely, that Paul himself was the author of 
this Gospel. Last of all, Origen distinctly declares that when Paul said my Gospel, 
he meant the Gospel of Luke. This progression is just what we want to enable us 
to verify the real historical character of the tradition in its primitive form. If the 
original information had been invented under the influence of the apologetic interest 
which moulded the tradition later on, would it not have begun where it ended ? 

3. The supposition that the name of Luke, which has been affixed to our Gospel, 
was merely an hypothesis of the Fathers, gives no explanation why they should have 
preferred a man so seldom named as Luke, instead of fixing their choice on one of 
those fellow-laborers of the apostle that were better known, such as Timothy, Silas, 
or Titus, whom modern criticism has thought of. The obscurity in which this per- 
sonage would be veiled, if his name did not figure at the head of the writings which 
are attributed to him, is one of the best guarantees of the tradition which declares 
him the author of them. We do not see, then, what, in a historic point of view, 
could invalidate the force of the ecclesiastical testimony on this point ; and we agree 
with Holtzmann (" Die synopt. Evang." p. 377), when he says that " this tradition 
is only to be rejected from the point where it proceeds to place the composition of 
our Gospel under the guarantee of Paul himself." 

Three opinions have been put forth by modern criticism on the question under 
consideration. 



18 « COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

1. An " anonymous Saxon," * while declaring that our Gospel is nothing but a 
tissue of falsehoods, a pamphlet composed out of hatred of Peter and the Twelve, 
boldly attributes it to Paul himself. 

2. Hilgenfeld, Zeller, etc., think that this writing is the work of an unknown 
Christian at the beginning of the second century. 

3. Most admit, in conformity with the traditional opinion, that the author is the 
Luke mentioned in Paul's Epistles. We only mention, to show that we have not for- 
gotten it, the opinion of Mayerhoff, never adopted by any one else, and which was 
only the very logical consequence of Schleiermacher's on the portions in which we 
occurs in the book of the Acts— namely, that our Gospel, as well as these portions, 
should be attributed to Timothy. 

SEC. III. — COMPOSITION OF THE THIKD GOSPEL. 

"We possess nothing from tradition but some scanty and uncertain information re- 
specting the origin of our Gospel. 

I. As to the time, the greater part of the critics are wrong in making Irenaeus say 
that Luke wrote after the death (of the departure from Rome) of Peter and Paul 
(post Twrum excessum, iii. 1). This is a false conclusion drawn from the fact that 
Irenaeus speaks of the Gospel of Luke after that of Mark, to which this chronologi- 
cal statement applies. The order in which this Father here speaks of the Gospels 
and their origin may be simply the order of these books in the canon, and in no way 
of the date of their composition. We find in this same Irenaeus (iii. 9, 10) the follow- 
ing order : Matthew, Luke, Mark. 

The only real traditional information which we possess on this point is that of 
Clement of Alexandria, who states it as a fact transmitted by the presbyters who 
have succeeded each other from the beginning (and rtiv avefcaQev npeofivrepuv), " that 
the Gospels containing the genealogies were written first (npoyeypafyQai tuv evayyekiw 
to, nepiexovra rdf yeveahoycag)." Eus. Hist. Eccl. vi. 14. According to this, Matthew 
and Luke were composed before Mark. Further, since, according to this very Clem- 
ent and these same authorities, Mark must have been composed at Rome during 
Peter's life, it follows that, according to the view embodied in this tradition, Luke 
was composed prior to the death of this apostle. The sober and original form of the 
former of these two traditions, the respectable authority on which it rests, the impos- 
sibility of its having been deduced from an exegetical combination, seeing that there 
is no logical connection between the criterion indicated (the presence of a genealogy) 
and the date which is assigned to it, seem to me to confer a much higher value on 
this ancient testimony than modern criticism generally accords to it. 

The reasons for which so early a date of composition is rejected are purely inter- 
nal. It is thought that the Gospel itself yields proofs of a later date than would be 
indicated by this tradition of Clement. Baur, who has fixed it the latest, places the 
composition after a.d. 130 ; Hilgenfeld, from 100 to 110 ; Zeller, at the commence- 
ment of the second century or earlier ; Volkmar, about 100 ; Keim, about 90. The 
other critics, Meyer, De Wette, Bleek, Reuss, who come nearer in general to the tra- 
ditional opinion, limit themselves to saying, after the fall of Jerusalem ; Holtzmann, 
between 70 and 80, Tholuck, Guericke, Ebrard, before the fall of Jerusalem. In the 

* " Die Evangelien, ihr Geist, ihre Verfasser und ihr Verhaltniss zu einander," 
1st ed. 1845 ; 2d, 1852. 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 19 

concluding dissertation we shall weigh the exegetical reasons for and against these 
different opinions. But it appears to us, that the facts mentioned (Sec. 1) already 
make it clear that every opinion which places the composition in the second century 
is historically untenable. The use which the continuator of Mark and Clement of 
Rome make of our Gospel, and the use which this same Clement and the author of 
the " Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs" make of the Acts, render so late a date 
of composition quite impossible. 

II. As to the place, we have only two hints, and we can form no critical judg- 
ment of their value. Jerome (De vir. ill. c. 7) says : " Luke, a physician, who com- 
posed his book in the countries of Achaia and Boeotia." On the other hand, in the 
Peschito, the title of our Gospel runs thus : " Gospel of Luke the Evangelist, which 
he published and preached in Greek {quod protulit et evangelisavit grcece) in Alexandria 
the Great." The two statements are not necessarily contradictory. Luke may have 
composed his work in Greece and have published it in Alexandria, which was the 
great centre of the book- world at that time. 

Criticism cannot certainly feel itself bound by such late and uncertain informa- 
tion. Hilgenfeld, who on this point differs least from tradition, places the composi- 
tion in Achaia or Macedonia ; Kostlin at Ephesus ; the majority at Rome or in Italy. 
We shall discuss the question in concluding. 

III. The author himself announces his aim in his preface. He wrote with the 
design of completing the Christian instruction of a man in high station, named The- 
ophilus. This name could not denote a purely fictitious person, as Origen supposed, 
who was inclined to apply it to every Christian endowed with spiritual powers. 
Neither could the Jewish high priest Theophilus, of whom Josephus speaks, be 
intended (Antiq. xviii. 6. 3 ; xix. 6. 2), nor the Athenian of this name mentioned by 
Tacitus (Ann. ii. 55). The only traditional information we possess about this person 
is that found in the " Clementine Recognitions" (x. 71), about the middle of the 
second century : "So that Theophilus, who was at the head of all the men in power 
at the city (of Antioch), consecrated, under the name of a church, the great basilica 
(the palace) in which he resided. " * According to this, Theophilus was a great lord 
residing in the capital of Syria. We have already referred to the reasons which lead 
us to think that Luke himself was originally from this city. Did he belong to the 
household of Theophilus ? Had he been his slave, and then his freedman ? Lobeck 
has remarked that the termination as was a contraction particularly frequent in the 
names of slaves, f Physicians appear to have frequently belonged to the class of 
slaves or freedmen4 If Luke, freed by Theophilus, practised as a physician at 
Antioch, and if he was brought to the faith at the time of the founding of the church 
in that city, he might very well have decided to accompany the apostle in his mission. 

In this case he would have rejoined him at Troas, just as he was about to pass over 
into Europe ; and there would no longer be anything surprising in the pronoun we, 
by which he assigns himself a place in the missionary company. On this supposi- 
tion, also, we can understand why he should have dedicated his work to his old friend 

*"Ita ut Theophilus, qui erat cunctis potentibus in civitate*sublimior, domus 
suae ingentem basilicam ecclesise nomine consecraret. " 

f Wolf's "Analecten, iii. 49 ;" coinp. Tholuck, " Glaubwurd." p. 148. 

% Quintilian, " Instit." vii. 2 : Medicinam factitasse manumissum. Suet. Calig. 
c. 8 : Mittocum eo ex servis me is medicum. Comp. Cic. pro Cluentio, c. 63 ; Seneca, 
" De Beneficiis," iii. 24. See Hug, " Einl." ii. p. 134. 



20 COMMENTARY 02* ST. LUKE. 

and patron. This dedication does not mean, however, that the book was intended 
for Theophilus alone. Until the discovery of printing, the publication of a work was 
a very costly undertaking ; and authors were accustomed to dedicate their works to 
some high personage of their acquaintance, who could procure the writer an oppor- 
tunity of reading his production in some select circle, and have the first copies pre- 
pared at his own expense. In this way he opened to the author the road to publicity. 
Whoever was obliging enough to undertake this responsibility was called the patronus 
libri. Such, doubtless, was the service which Theophilus was asked to render to 
Luke's work. In reality, Luke addressed himself, through the medium of this 
person, to all that part of the church to which Theophilus belonged, to the churches 
of the Greek world, and, in a certain sense, to the entire Church. 

The object he had in view, according to the Fathers, was simply to make known 
the history of Jesus, more particularly to converts from the heathen. Modern criti- 
cism has found in the preface, and even in the narrative, indications of a more 
special design connected with the great movement of ecclesiastical polemics which it 
conceives occupied the first and second centuries. According to Baur (" Marcus 
Evang. " p. 223, et seq.), the original Luke, of which Marcion has preserved a faith- 
ful impression, was intended to oppose the Jewish Christianity of the Twelve, as 
represented by the Gospel of Matthew in its original form. The author sought to 
depreciate the apostles in order to exalt Paul ; while our canonical Luke, which is a 
later version of this original Luke, was directed rather against the unbelieving and 
persecuting Judiasm. The former part of this proposition has been reproduced and 
developed in still stronger terms by " the anonymous Saxon," who sees nothing in 
the third Gospel but a bitter pamphlet of the Apostle Paul against the Twelve, and 
more especially against Peter. M. Burnouf has made himself the advocate of this 
view in the Bevue des Deux Mondes* But even in the Tubingen school a protest 
has been raised against what have been called the " exaggerations" of Baur. Zeller 
finds no trace either in the Gospel or the Acts of this spirit of systematic depreciation 
of Peter and the Twelve. According to him, the author simply wishes to check 
excessive admiration for Peter, and to preserve Paul's place by the side of this apostle. 
With this aim, he guards himself from directly opposing the Christianity of the 
Twelve ; he simply places side by side with the views of the Jewish- Christian apostles 
those of Paul, which he endeavors, as far as possible, to exhibit as identical with the 
former. That in this attempt at reconciliation real history is sacrificed, appears evi- 
dent to this critic. He accounts in this way for the fact that in this Gospel Jesus 
gives utterance alternately to particularist teaching (in the sense of the Twelve), and 
to universalist passages suited to the thought of Paul. 

Volkmar combats this view. Nowhere in our Gospel, not even in the facts and 
discourses of the first two chapters, does he discover those particularist or Ebionitish 
elements, by means of which, according to Zeller, the author sought to win the confi- 
dence of the Jewish-Christian party. In his judgment, the Gospel of Luke is purely 
Pauline. In opposition to that fiery manifesto of apostolic Jewish- Christianity, the 
Apocalypse,f composed in a.d. 68, Mark, five years afterward, published his Gospel, 
the earliest in point of time, and written in the sense of a moderate Paulinism ; later 
still, Luke re-wrote this book, laying still greater emphasis on the principles of the 
apostle to the Gentiles. In all these suppositions the idea is, that Jesus speaks in the 
Gospel, not as He really spoke, but as it suits the evangelist to make Him speak. 

* December, 1865. t See p. 25.— J. H. 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 21 

All these opinions as to the aim of Luke's work are connected with the great 
question, suggested by Baur, of a fundamental difference of view between Paul and 
the Twelve, which is represented as the real starting-point of the development of the 
Church and of the entire Christian literature. This question, with which that of the 
origin of the Gospels is now inseparably connected, will be discussed in our conclud- 
ing paragraphs. 

SEC. IV. — SOURCES OP THE THIRD GOSPEL. 

There is no room for an inquiry into the sources whence the author of a Gospel 
derived his knowledge of the facts which he transmits to us, except on two condi- 
tions : 1. That the evangelist is not regarded as an eye-witness of the facts related. 
Now this is a character which the author of the third Gospel expressly disclaims 
(1 : 2). 2. That we are not governed by that false notion of inspiration, according to 
which the sacred history was revealed and dictated to the evangelists by the Holy 
Spirit. As far as our third Gospel is concerned, this idea is altogether excluded by 
what the author says himself of the information he had to obtain to qualify himself 
to write his book (1 : 3).* 

It is at once, then, the right and the duty of criticism to inquire from what sources 
the author derived the incidents which he records. This question, however, is im- 
mediately complicated with another and more general question, as to the relation 
between our three synoptics. For many regard it as probable, and even certain, that 
some one of our Gospels served as a source of information to the writer who com- 
posed another of them. It is not our intention to relate here the history of the dis- 
cussion of this great theological and literary problem, f We do not even intend in 
this place to set forth the numerous and apparently contradictory facts which bring 
it up afresh after every attempted solution. In view of the exegetical work we have 
in hand, we shall here bring forward only two matters : 

I. The elements of which criticism has availed itself in order to solve the problem. 

II. The principal systems which it constructs at the present day by means of these 
elements. 

I. 

The factors which criticism has hitherto employed for the solution of the problem 
are four in number : 

1. Oral tradition (n-apadocyis), or the reproduction of the apostolic testimony, as 
they gave it when they founded the churches. This factor must have borne a very 
essential part in determining the form of the evangelical historical writings from their 
very commencement. Luke indicates its importance, 1 : 2. According to this 
expression, "even as they delivered them unto us," this tradition was the original 
source of the oral or written narratives which were circulated in the churches. It 
branched out into a thousand channels through the ministry of the evangelists (Eph. 
4 : 11 ; 2 Tim. 4 : 5). Gieseler, with his exquisite historical tact, was the first to 
bring out all the value of this fact as serving to explain the origin of the Gospels.:}: 

* The advocates of the theory of plenary inspiration would not regard this para- 
graph as a correct representation of their views. They would not regard the use of 
foregoing documents as incompatible with their views. — J. H. 

f We refer our readers to the generally accurate account of M. Nicolas, " Etudes 
Critiques sur le N. T." pp. 45-85. 

X " Historisch-kritischer Versuch liber die Entstehung*und die friihesten Schick- 
sale der Schrifthchen Evangelien," Leipzig, 1818. 



22 COMMEKTAKY OK ST. LUKE. 

2. Separate writings or memoirs (aTTo/uvrj/j.ovevfj,ara) on some feature or particular 
part of the Saviour's life, on a discourse or a miracle which an evangelist related, 
and which he or one of his hearers put in writing that it might not be forgotten ; 
or, again, some private account preserved among their family papers by the persons 
more immediately interested in the evangelical drama : we may regard our Gospel as 
a collection of a number of such detached writings, pieced together by the hand of 
an editor. Carrying out this view, Schleiermacher made a very ingenious analysis 
of the Gospel of Luke in a little work * which was to be completed by a similar study 
of the Acts, but the second part never appeared. Thus this scholar thought he could 
discriminate, in the portion 9 : 51 ; 19 : 48, traces of two distinct writings, the first of 
which would be the journal of a companion of Jesus in His journey to the feast of 
dedication, the second the journal of another companion of Jesus when He went up 
to the feast of the Passover. The truth of this second means of explanation might 
be supported by the proper meaning of the word avarutjacQai, to arrange in order, 
1 : 1, if only it were proved that the arrangement implied by this word refers to the 
documents, and not to the facts themselves. 

Under this category of detached writings would have to be ranged also the various 
documents which several critics believe they have detected in Luke's work, on 
account of a kind of literary or dogmatic patchwork which they find in it. Thus 
Kuinol, following Marsh, regarded the portion 9 : 51 ; 18 : 14 as a more ancient 
writing, containing a collection of the precepts of Jesus, to which he gave the name 
of gnomonology. Hilgenfeld f also distinguishes from the narrative as a whole^ 
which has the uuiversalist character of the Christianity of St. Paul, certain passages 
of Jewish-Christian tendency, which he regards as some very early materials, pro- 
ceeding from the apostolic Church itself. The entire portion 9 : 51 ; 19 : 28 rests, 
according to him, on a more ^ancient writing which the author introduced into his 
work, working it up afresh both in substance and form. Kostlin % thinks it may be 
proved that there were some sources of Judean origin, and others of Samaritan 
origin, which furnished Luke with a knowledge of the facts of which the two coun- 
tries of Judea and Samaria are the scene in our Gospel. Keim, while declaring him- 
self for this view, admits besides other sources of Pauline origin ; for example, the 
document of the institution of the Holy Supper. § It is impossible to doubt that the 
genealogical document 3 : 23, el seq. existed before our Gospel, and, such as it is, was 
inserted in it by the author (see on 3 : 23). 

3. We must allow, further, the existence of longer and fuller documents which 
Luke might have used. Does he not speak himself, in his preface, of writings that 
were already numerous at the time he was writing (7ropioi), which in respect of con- 
tents must have been of very much the same nature as his own, that is to say, veri- 
table Gospels ? He designates them by the name of 6trjyr,aLi, a word which has been 
wrongly applied to detached writings of the kind that Schleiermacher admitted, and 
which can only apply to a consecutive and more or less complete narrative. If such 
works existed in great number, and were known to Luke, it is difficult to think that 
he has not endeavored to profit by them. The only question then is, whether, on the 

* " Ueber die Schriften des Lucas, ein Kritischer Versuch," von Schleiermacher, 
Berlin, 1817. 

f "Die Evangelien," 1852. 

% " Der Ursprung und die Compos, der syn. Evang." 1853. 

§ " Geschichte Jesu," t. i., Zurich, 1867. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 23 

supposition that they no longer exist, we can form any idea of them by means of our 
Gospel, for the composition of which they supplied some materials. Keim thinks he 
recognizes, as a general basis of Luke's work, a Jewish-Christian Gospel, which must 
have been nearly related to our Matthew, very probably its direct descendant, but 
distinguished from it by an unhealthy tendency to Ebionitism and Dualism. The 
spirit of this fundamental document would betray itself all through Luke's work. 
Ewald imagines a whole series of writings of which Luke must have availed himself 
— a Hebrew Gospel by Philip the deacon, a collection of the discourses of Jesus by the 
Apostle Matthew, of which Papias speaks, etc. (see further on). Bleek,* reviving 
in a new form the hypothesis of a primitive Gospel (a manual composed, according 
to Eichhorn, for the use of evangelists, under apostolic sanction), admits, as a basis 
of our Gospels of Matthew and Luke, a Greek Gospel, written in Galilee by a believer, 
who at certain times had himself accompanied Jesus. This earliest account of the 
Saviour's life would mould all the subsequent evangelical narrations. The writings 
of the Tcolloi, many (1 : 1), would be only variations of it, and our three synoptics 
merely different versions of the same. Lastly, we know that many critics at the 
present day find the principal source of Luke and the two other synoptics (at least of 
the narrative part) in a supposed Gospel of Mark, older than our canonical Mark, and 
to which they give the name of Proto-Mark (Reuss, Reville, Holtzmann, etc.).f All 
these writings, anterior to that of Luke, and only known to us by the traces of them 
discovered in his work, are lost at the present day. 

4. Would it be impossible for some writing which we still possess to be one of 
the sources of Luke — for example, one of our two synoptics, or even both of them ? 
This fourth means of explanation has at all times been employed by criticism. At the 
present day it is still used with great confidence by many. According to Baur,| 
Matthew was the direct and sole source of Luke ; Mark proceeded from both. Hil- 
genfeld also puts Matthewflrst ; but he interposes Mark between Matthew and Luke. 
According to Volkmar,§ Mark is the primary source ; from him proceeded Luke, and 
Matthew from both. 

To sum up : Oral tradition, detached writings, Gospels more or less complete 
now lost ; last of all, one or other of our existing Gospels — such are the materials by 
means of which criticism has made various attempts to solve the problem of the 
origin, both of Luke in particular and of the synoptics in general. Let us endeavor 
now to describe the systems which actual criticism labors to construct out of these 
various kinds of materials. 

II. 

1. We will commence with the self-styled critical school of Baur. The common 
tendency of writers of this school is to represent the synoptics as deriving their con- 
tents from each other. In their view, the contents of our Gospels cannot be his'tori- 

* "Einleitung in das K T.," 1862; " Synoptische Erklarung der drei ersten 
Evangelien," 1869. 

f Reuss, " Geschichte der heiligen Schriften N. T." 3d ed. 1860; Reville, 
" Etudes critiques sur l'evang. selon St. Matthieu," 1862 ; Holtzmann, " Die synopi . 
Ev."1863. 

t Baur, " Das Marcus-Evangelium," 1851. 

§ Volkmar, " Die Evangelien," 1870. 



24 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. ■ 

cal, because they contain the inadmissible element of miracles.* Consequently they 
regard our Gospels, not as real historical narrations, but as compositions of a poetical 
or didactic character. The differences between them are not in any way natural 
divergences proceeding from such undesigned modifications as tradition undergoes 
in course of oral transmission, or from the diversity of written sources, but result 
from different dogmatic tendencies in the writers of the Gospels which they perfectly 
reflect. Each evangelist has reproduced his matter with a free hand, modifying it in 
accordance with his personal views. In reality, then, our Gospels are the reflection, 
not of the object they describe, but of the controversial or conciliatory tendencies of 
their authors. These books make us acquainted, not with the history of Jesus, but 
with that of the Church, and of the different theories respecting the Founder of the 
gospel, which have been successively held in it. This common result of the school 
appears in its most pronounced form in Baur and Volkmar, in a milder form in Ko'st- 
lin and Hilgenfeld. 

Baur himself, as we have seen, makes, as Griesbach and De Wette did before 
him, Luke proceed from Matthew, and Mark from Luke and Matthew united. This 
relationship is made out in this way. There was, first of all, a strictly legal and par- 
ticularist Matthew, reflecting the primitive Christianity of the Twelve, and of the 
church of Jerusalem. From this original Matthew afterward proceeded our canonical 
Matthew, .the narrative being recast in a universalist sense (between 130 and 134) 
In opposition to the original Matthew there appeared first a Luke, which was alto- 
gether Pauline, or anti-legal ; this was the writing Marcion adopted, and from which 
proceeded later on our canonical Luke. The latter was the result of a revision 
designed to harmonize it with the Jewish-Christian views (about 140). Reconciliation 
having thus been reached from both sides, Mark followed, in which the original con- 
trast is entirely neutralized. For its matter, the latter is naturally dependent on the 
other two. 

The " anonymous Saxon" f starts with the same general notion ; but he seasons it 
in a piquant fashion. According to him, our synoptics, with the exception of Luke, 
were indeed composed by the authors to whom the Church attributes them ; but they 
intentionally misrepresented the facts. As to the third, Paul, who was its author, 
composed it with a view to decry the Twelve and their party. 

Hilgenfeld denies the opposition, admitted by Baur, between the original Matthew 
and a Luke which preceded ours. He believes that, in the very bosom of apostolic 
and Jewish-Christian Christianity, there was an internal development at work from 
the first century in a Pauline direction, the result partly of the force of events, but 
more especially of the influence of the fall of Jerusalem and the conversion of the 
Gentiles. He finds a proof of this gradual transformation in the numerous universal- 
ist passages of our canonical Matthew, which witness to the changes undergone by 
the original Matthew. This last writing, the oldest of the Gospels, dated from 70-80. 
The Gospel of Mark, which followed it, went a step further in the Pauline direc- 
tion. It was an imitation of the Gospel of Matthew, but at the same time modified 
by the oral tradition existing in the Church at Rome, which was derived from Peter ; 

* Hilgenfeld (" Die Evangelien," p. 530 : " The principal argument for the later 
origin of our Gospels is always this fact, that they relate very many things about the 
life of Jesus, which certainly could not have taken place as they narrate them." 

f " Sendschreiben an Baur iiber die Abfassungszeit des Lukas und der Synopti- 
ker," 1848. p. 26, et seq. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 25 

it dates from the period from 80-100. Hilgenfeld, therefore, does not recognize 
Luke's influence anywhere in Mark, while Baur discovers it everywhere. Luke pro- 
ceeds, according to him, from the two former ; he takes a fresh step in the universal - 
ist and Pauline direction. It was written before Marcion's time, from 100 to 110. 
Thus, as this theologian himself remarks, " the formation of our canonical Gospels 
was completely finished before the time when Baur makes it begiD" (" Kanon, " p. 
172). With this difference as to dates between the master and his disciple, there is 
connected a more profound difference still. Instead of a sharp dogmatical contrast 
which was gradually neutralized, Hilgenfeld admits a progressive development in the 
very bosom of primitive Jewish Christianity. 

With Baur, Mark came third ; with Hilgenfeld, second ; there was only wanted 
further a theologian of the same school who should assign him the first place ; and 
this is done at the present time by Volkmar, who follows the example of Storr in. the 
last century. According to him, that fiery manifesto of primitive Jewish Christian- 
ity, the Apocalypse, had about 68 declared implacable hostility against St. Paul, 
representing him (chap, xiii.) as the false prophet of the last times, and making the 
churches founded by him, in comparison with the Jewish-Christian churches, a mere 
plebs (chap. vii.). A moderate Paulinian took up the gauntlet and wrote (about 73), 
as a reply our second Gospel, the oldest of all the writings of this kind. It was a 
didactic poem, on a historical basis,* designed to defend Paul and the right of the 
Gentile churches. Beyond the Old Testament and the Epistles of Paul, the author 
had no other sources than oral tradition, his Christian experience, the Apocalypse 
which he opposed, and his creative genius. Somewhat later (about the year 100), a 
Pauline believer of the Church of Rome, who had travelled in Palestine, worked up 
this book into a new form by the aid of some traditions which he had collected, and 
by inserting in it first a genealogical- document (Genealogus Hebraeorum), and then a 
writing of Essenist tendency (Evangelium panperum). His aim was to win over to 
Paulinism the Jewish-Christian part of the Church, which was still in a majority. 
This was our Luke. Matthew is the result of a fusion of the two preceding writings. 
It is the manifesto of a moderate Jewish-Christian feeling, which desired to gather 
all the heathen into the Church, but could not see its way to this at the cost of the 
abolition of the law, as Paul taught ; its composition dates from 110. All the other 
writings, the existence of which has been supposed by modern criticism, such as a 
Proto-Matthew, the Logia, and a Proto-Mark, in Volkmar 's judgment, are nothing 
but empty critical fancies. 

The third, second, and first place in succession having been assigned to Mark, no 
new supposition seemed possible, at least from the same school. Nevertheless Ko'stlin 
has rendered possible the impossible, by assigning to Mark all three positions at once. 
This complicated construction is difficult to follow : The oldest evangelical recoul 
would be thatr Proto-Mark to which Papias must have referred ; it represented the 
moderate universalism of Peter. From this work, combined with oral tradition and 
the Logia of the Apostle Matthew, would proceed our canonical Matthew. These 
different works are supposed to have given birth to a Gospel of Peter, which closely 
resembled the original Mark, but was still more like our actual Mark. After that 
must have appeared Luke, to which all the preceding sources contributed ; and last 

* " Die Evangelien," p. 461 : " Eine s'elbstbewusste Lehrpoesie auf historischen 
Grunde." 



26 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

of all our actual Mark, which would be the result of a revision of the original Mark 
by the help of the canonical Matthew and Luke. The principal waymarks of the route 
thus traversed are these : Mark (I.) ; Matthew ; Mark (II. , or the Gospel of PetCr) ; 
Luke ; Mark (III.). We can only say that this hypothesis is the death-blow of the 
theory of the Tubingen school, as formerly Marsh's system was of the hypothesis of 
an original Gospel. The complicated and artificial form this hypothesis is compelled 
to assume, by the difficulties which weigh upon its simpler forms, is its condemna- 
tion. Thus, as Hilgenfeld regretfully observes, " after such multiplied and arduous 
labors we are still very far from reaching the least agreement even on the most 
essential points. " Let it be observed that this disagreement is evinced by disciples 
of one and the same school, which advanced into the critical arena with colors 
flying, and thundering forth the paean. of victory. Is not such a state of things a 
serious fact, especially for a school the fundamental idea of which is, that there is an 
intimate connection between the successive appearances of our Gospels and the his- 
tory of the primitive Church, of which last this school claims to give the world a new 
conception ? Does not such a complete diversity in fixing the order in which the 
Gospels appeared, exhibit a no less fundamental disagreement in conceiving of the 
development of the Church ? These are evident symptoms not only of the breaking 
up of this school, but, above all, of the radical error of the original notion on which 
it was founded. The opposition in principle between Paulinism and Jewish Chris- 
tianity, which is an axiom with this school, is also its irp&rov ipevdoS. 

2. We will now enumerate the critical systems which have kept independent of 
the Tubingen school. 

If Bleek, who is at once the most discerning and judicious critic of our day, is 
in several respects the antipodes of Baur, he agrees with him on one point : the entire 
dependence he attributes to Mark in relation to the two other synoptics. As has been 
already mentioned, he makes Matthew and Luke proceed from a Gospel written in 
Greek by a Galilean believer, who was present at several scenes in the ministry of Jesus 
in this province. This is the reason why this book has given such great preponder- 
ance to the Galilean work. The numerous works of which Lukespeaks (1 : 1) were all 
different versions of this, as well as our canonical Matthew and Luke. This impor- 
tant book, with all its offshoots, which preceded our synoptics, is lost ; these last, the 
most complete and best accredited, have alone survived. This conception is simple 
and clear. Whether it renders a sufficient account of the facts, remains to be seen. 

Ritschl, in a remarkable article, has pronounced in favor of the absolute priority 
of our canonical Mark (to the exclusion of any Proto-Mark). Matthew proceeded, 
according to him, from Mark, and Luke from both.* Ritschl endeavors to prove these 
statements by a very sagacious analysis of the relations between the narratives of 
Matthew and Mark on certain points of detail. But the impression we have received 
from this labor is, that both the method followed, and the results obtained, are more 
ingenious than solid. 

Reuss, Reville, Holtzmann, agree in making two writings, now lost, the original 
sources of our three synoptical Gospels These were: 1. The Proto-Mark, which 
furnished our three evangelists with their general outline, and with the narratives 
common to them all ; 2. The " Logia," or collection of discourses compiled by Mat- 

* " Ueber den gegenw&rtigen Stand der Kritik der syn. Ev.,' : in the " Theol. 
Jahrb," 1851. 



COMMENTARY OS ST. LUKE. 2? 

thew, which was the source for those instructions of Jesus related in common by 
Matthew and Luke. Our canonical Mark is a reproduction (enlarged according to 
Reuss, abridged according to Holtzmann) of the former of these two writings. Its 
author made no use of the " Logia. " Matthew and Luke both proceeded from a 
fusion of these two fundamental writings. Their authors inserted or distributed, in 
the outline sketch of the Proto-Mark, the sayings and discourses collected in the 
" Logia." But here arises a difficulty. If the sayings of Jesus, as Matthew and 
Luke convey them to us, are drawn from the same source, how does it happen that 
Matthew transmits them in the form of large masses of discourse (for examjjle, the 
Sermon on the Mount, chap. 5:7; the collection of parables, chap. 13, etc.), 
while in Luke these very sayings are more frequently presented to us in the form of 
detached instructions, occasioned by some accidental circumstance ? Of these two 
different forms, which is to be regarded as most faithful to the original document ? 
Matthew, who groups into large masses the materials that lie side by side in the 
" Logia" ? or Luke, who breaks up the long discourses of the " Logia," and divides 
them into a number of particular sayings ? Holtzmann decides in favor of the first 
alternative. According to this writer, we ought to allow that the form of the 
" Logia" was very nearly that presented by the teaching of Jesus in the narrative of 
travel, Luke 9 : 51, 19 : 28. Weizsacker, on the contrary, defends the second view, 
and thinks that the long discourses of Matthew are more or less faithful reproduc- 
tions of the form of the "Logia." This also is the opinion of M. Reville. We 
shall have to see whether this hypothesis, under either of its two forms, bears the test 
of facts. 

Ewald sets out in the same way with the two hypotheses of the Proto-Mark and 
the " Logia" ; but he constructs upon this foundation an exceedingly complicated 
system, according to which our Luke would be nothing less than the combined result 
of eight anterior writings : 1. A Gospel written by Philip the Evangelist, which 
described in the Aramaean language the salient facts of the life of Jesus, with short 
historical explanations. 2. Matthew's " Logia," or discourses of Jesus, furnished 
with short historical introductions. 3. The Proto-Mark, composed by the aid of the 
two preceding writings, remarkable for the freshness and vivacity of its coloring, and 
differing very little from our canonical Mark. 4. A Gospel treating of certain critical 
points in our Lord's life (the temptation, for example). Ewald calls this writing the 
"Book of the Higher History." 5. Our canonical Matthew, combining the 
"Logia" of this apostle with all the other writings already named. 6, 7, and 8.. 
Three writings now lost, which Ewald describes as though he had them in his 
hands : one of a familiar, tender character ; another somewhat brusque and abrupt ; 
the third comprising the narratives of the infancy (Luke 1 and 2). Lastly, 9. Our 
canonical Luke, composed by the aid of all the preceding (with the exception of our 
Matthew), and which simply combines the materials furnished bj r the others. We 
may add, 10. Our canonical Mark, which with very slight modification is the repro- 
duction of No. 3. This construction certainly does not recommend itself by its 
intrinsic evidence and simplicity. It may prove as fatal to the hypothesis of a 
Proto-Mark as was formerly that of Marsh to the hypothesis of a primitive Gospel, 
or as that of Kostlin at the present day to the Tubingen idea. 

Lastly, we see a new mode of explanation appearing, which seems destined to 
replace for a time the theory, so stoutly maintained by and since Wilke. of the prior- 
ity of Mark or of the Proto-Mark, whenever it has any considerable connection with 



28 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE., 

this last. This opinion has been developed by Weiss in three ve^ elaborate articles,"* 
in which he seeks to prove : 1. That the most ancient work was an apostolical Mat- 
thew, comprising the discourses, some longer and others shorter, with a large number 
of facts, but without any intention on the part of the author to write the entire history 
of Jesus. 2. Thereupon appeared Mark, written by the aid of recollections which 
the author had preserved of the recitals of Peter. This was the first attempt to trace 
the entire course of the ministry of Jesus. He included in this sketch all the sayings 
of Jesus contained in the preceding work which could be adapted to his narrative. 
3. The author of our canonical Matthew made use of this work of Mark, rewrote it, 
and supplemented it b\ r the aid of the apostolical Matthew. 4. Luke also rewrote 
the two more ancient works, the ap'ostolic Matthew and Mark, but in a very free 
manner, and enriched his narrative with new materials derived from oral or written 
tradition. 

This combination appears to me to come very near the explanation, which is the 
basis of a recent work of Klostermann. f By a consecutive, detailed, delicate analysis 
of the Gospel of Mark, this scholar proves that the author of this work composed it 
on the basis of Matthew, enamelling the story with explanatory notes, the substance 
of which evidently emanated from an eye-witness of the ministry of Jesus, which 
could' have been none other than Peter ; in general, the additions refer to the relations 
of Jesus with His apostles. With Klostermann, as with Weiss, Matthew would be 
the first and principal written source ; but with this difference (if we rightly under- 
stand), that with the former this Matthew is our canonical Matthew, while in the 
opinion of Weiss, this last writing differed sensibly from the prmitive Matthew, which 
only appears in our canonical Matthew as transformed by means of Mark. The 
dependence of Mark on Matthew has then much more stress laid upon by it Kloster- 
mann than by Weiss. Klostermann announces a second work, in which he will 
prove a precisely similar dependence of Luke upon Mark. Thus it is clear, that in 
proportion as criticism dispenses with the Hypothesis of a Proto-Mark, it is compelled 
to attribute to the primitive Matthew, which at the outset was to be only a collection 
of discourses, more and more of the historical element ; so that in Weiss it again 
becomes a more or less complete Gospel, and lastly in Klostermann approximates 
closely to our canonical Matthew itself. 

This question of the origin of the synoptics, and of their mutual relations, must 
not be regarded as unimportant in regard to the substance of the evangelical beliefs. 
Just as the view defended by the Tubingen school, according to which our synoptics 
are simply derived from one another, exhibits the contents of these writings, and the 
degree of confidence they inspired at the time they appeared, in an unfavorable light 
(since the differences which exist between them could, in such a case only proceed 
from the caprice of the copyists, and the slight faith they placed in the story of their 
predecessors) ; so does the other opinion, which looks for different sources, oral or 
written, whence each writing proceeds, and which are adequate to account for their 
mutual resemblances or differences, tend to re-establish their general credibilty, and 
their genuineness as historical works. 

* In the " Studien und Kritiken," 1861 ; " Jahrbiicher fur Deutsche Theologie," 
1864 ; Ibid. 1865. Since then, Weiss has attempted to prove his theory by a detailed 
exegesis of Mark. 

f"Das Marcus-Evangeliiirn," Gottingen, 1867. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 



29 



The following is a table of the opinions of which we have just given an account : 

I.— SCHOOL OF TUEBINGEN. 



Matthew ) 

i [ 

Luke ) 



Mark 
Luke 



Baur. 

Mark. 
) 

VoLKMAR. 

Matthew. 



HlLGENFELD. 

Luke. 



Matthew 

I 
Mark 

Koestlin. 

Mark (1.) : Matthew 



1 £ 



Mark (II.) or Gospel of Peter 

Luke. J •^■ 



RlTSCHL. 



II. —INDEPENDENT SYSTEMS. 
Bleek. 



Mark 

I 
Matthew 



Luke. 



Ewald. 
Gosp. of Phil. Logia 



Mark (I.) 

I 
Matthew. 



J^Luke. 
I 

J 



Primitive Gospel 



Matthew ; Luke 
Mark. 
Weiss 

Matthew (I.) 

I 
Mark 



Matthew (II.); Luke. 



Reuss, etc. 
Mark (I.) Logia 

Mark (II.) ; Matthew ; Luke. 



EXOSTERMANST! 

Matthew ) 



Mark 



Luke. 



The state of things which this table portrays is not certainly such as to lead us to 
regard the question as solved, and the door closed against fresh attempts to explain 
the origin of the synoptics, particularly the origin of Luke; which is the final term of 
the problem. 

SEC. V. — ON THE PRESERVATION OF THE THIRD GOSPEL. 

Are we sure that we possess the book which we are about to study as it came from 
its author's hands ? Taken as a whole, yes. As guarantees of it, we have — 1. The 
general agreement of our text with the most ancient versions, the Peschito and the 
Italic, which date from the second century, and with the three Egyptian translations 
made at the beginning of the third ; 2. The general agreement of this text with the 
quotations of the Fathers of the second and thjrd centuries, Justin, Tatian, Irenaeus, 
Clement, Tertullian, Origen, etc. ; lastly, 3. The general uniformity of the manu- 
scripts in which the Greek text has been preserved. If any great changes had been 
introduced into the text, there would inevitably have been much greater differences 
among all these documents. These different tests prove that the third Gospel, just 
as we have it, was already in existence in the churches of the second and third cen- 
turies. A text so universally diffused could only proceed from the text that was 
received from the very first. 

The manuscripts containing the text of the New Testament consist of majuscules, 
or manuscripts written in uncial letters (until the tenth century), and of minuscules 
or manuscripts written in small or cursive writing (from the tenth century). The 
manuscripts known at the present day, containing the whole or part of the Gospels 
number nearly 44 majuscules, and more than 500 minuscules. The former are, for 
their antiquity and variety, the most important. Of this number, 19 contain the Gospel 



30 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

of Luke more or less complete ; of 11 there only remain some fragments, or series 
of fragments : there are, in all, 30 documents prior to the tenth century. 
Two of the fourth century : 

1. The Sinaiticus (&). 

2. The Vaticanus (B.) 
Five of the fifth century : 

3. The Alexandrinus (A.). 

4. The Codex EpJircemi (C). 

5. Twenty-eight palimpsest leaves (I). 

6. Palimpsest fragments found at Wolfenbuttel (Q). 

7. Different fragments, Greek with a Sahidic version, comprised in the Sahidic 

collection of Woide (T w ). T d denotes similar fragments of the seventh 
century. 
Five of the sixth century : 

8. The Cantabrigiensis (D). 

9. Fragments of a manuscript de luxe, written in letters of silver and gold (N). 

10. The hymns of Luke (chap. 1, 2), preserved in some psalters (O c ). O beef 

denote similar portions of the seventh and ninth centuries. 

11. Fragments of a palimpsest of Loudon (R). 

12. Fragments of Wolfenbuttel (P). 
Five of the eighth century : 

13. The Basiliensis (E). 

14 A manuscript of Paris (L). 

15. Fragments of the Gospels, of Paris and of Naples (W a ; W b ). 

16. Fragment of Luke at St. Petersburg (O d ). 

17. The Zacynthius, a palimpsest manuscript, found at Zante, comprising 

the first eleven chapters of Luke (S in Tischendorf, Z in our commen- 
tary). 
Eight of the ninth century : 

18. The Codex Boreeli (F). 

19. The Cyprius (K). 

20. A manuscript of Paris (M). 

21. A manuscript of Munich (X). 

22. A manuscript of Oxford (r). 

23. The San Gallensis (A). 

24. A manuscript of Oxford (A). 

25. A manuscript found at Smyrna, and deposited at St, Petersburg (IT). 
Five of the tenth century : 

26. 27. The two Codd. of Seidel (G, H). 

28. A manuscript of the Vatican (S). 

29. A manuscript of Venice (U). 

30. A manuscript of Moscow (V). 

Adding together all the various readings which these documents contain, we find 
from five to six thousand of them. But in general they are of very secondary im- 
portance, and involve no change in the matter of the Gospel history. 

On a closer study of them, it is observed that certain manuscripts habitually go 
together in opposition to others, and thus two principal forms of the text are estab- 
lished—one which is generally found in the most ancient majuscules, another which 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 31 

is met with in the minuscules and in the less ancient of the majuscules. ' Some man- 
uscripts oscillate between these two forms. 

As the text on which Erasmus formed the first edition of the New Testament in 
Greek was that of certain minuscules in the Bale library, and this text has continued 
to form the basis of subsequent editions, of which that of the Elzevirs of 1633 is 
the most generally diffused, it is evident that this, called the Received Text, is rather 
that of the minuscules and less ancient majuscules than the text of the old majus- 
cules. This text is also called Byzantine, because it is probably the one which was 
uniformly fixed in the churches of the Greek Empire. Those of our majuscules 
which represent it are the following : E. F. G. H. R. M. S. U. V. r. A. n. This 
form of the text is also called Asiatic. 

The opposite form, which is found in the older majuscules, B. G. L. R. X. Z. , appears 
to come from Alexandria, where, in the first centuries of the Church, manuscripts 
were most largely produced. For this reason this text takes the name of .Alexandrine. 
Some manuscripts, while ordinarily following the Alexandrine, differ from them 
more or less frequently ; these are &. A. D. A. The text of & and of D resembles, in 
many instances, the ancient Latin translation, the Italic. 

A middle form between these two principal texts is found in the fragments 
denoted by X. 0. W. Y. 0. 

It is a constant question, which of the two texts, the Alexandrine or the Byzan- 
tine, reproduces with the greatest fidelity the text of the original document. It is a 
question which, in our opinion, cannot be answered in a general way and a prio?*i, 
and which must be solved in each' particular instance by exegetical skill. 

ABBREVIATIONS. 

The abbreviations we shall use are generally those which Tischendorf has adopted 
in his eighth edition. 

1. Fathers. 

Just., Justin ; Ir., Iremeus ; Or., Origen, etc. 

2. Versions. 
Vss., versions. 

It., the Italic, comprising the different Latin translations prior to Jerome's (from 
the second century) : a, b, c, etc. denote the different documents of the Italic ; a the 
Vercellensis (4th c.) ; b the Veronensis (5th c.) ; c the Colbertinus (11th a), etc. 

Vg., the Vulgate, Jerome's translation (4th c.) ; Am., Fuld.. denote the principal 
documents of this translation — the Amiatinus (6th c), the Fuldensis (id.), etc. 

Syr., the Syriac translations. Syr sch , the Paschito, Schaaf's edition ; Syr cur , a 
more ancient translation than the Pescliito, discovered and published by Cureton. 
Syr. in brief (in our own use), these two united. 

Cop., the Coptic translation (3d c). 

3. Manuscripts. 

Mss., the manuscripts ; Mjj., the majuscules ; Mnn., the minuscules. 

The letter denoting a manuscript with the sign * (&*, B*) denotes the original text 
in opposition to corrections inserted in the text afterward. The small figures added 
to this same letter (B 2 , C 2 , etc.) signify first, second correction. For the manuscript 



32 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

&, which is in a peculiar condition, & a , & b denote the most ancient corrections, made 
by at least two different hands according to the text of different mss. from that from 
which & was copied, and & c similar corrections, but made a little later (7th c), and 
differing sometimes from each other & ca ' & cb ). F a , some quotations from the Gos- 
pels annotated in the margin of the Coislinianus (H. of the Epistles of Paul). 

4. Editions. 

T. R., the received text, viz. the ed. Elzevir of 1633, which is generally the repro- 
duction of the third ed. of Stephens ; 5 (Steph.) denotes the received text and that of 
Stephens united, where they are identical ; s e (Steph. Elzev.), the received text alone, 
in the rare instances in which these two texts differ. 

THE TITLE OF THE GOSPEL. 

The shortest form is found in &. B. F., icara Aovnav. The greater part of the 
Mjj. read evayyeXiov Kara Aovnav. The T. R., with some Mnn. only, to Kara Aovnav 
evayy. Some Mnn., to Kara Aovnav dyiov evayy. 

In the opinion of several scholars (Reuss. " Gesch. der heil. Schr. N. T. " § 177), 
the prep. Kara, according to, signifies not : composed by, but : drawn up according 
to the conception of. . . . Thus this title, so far from affirming that our Gospel 
was composed by the person designated, would rather deny it. This sense does not 
appear to us admissible. Not only may the preposition Kara apply to the writer him- 
self, as the following expressions prove : rj Kara Mtovoea TvevrdTevxoS (the Pentateuch 
according to Moses) in Epiphanius ; i? naO' 'Hpodorov ioTopia (the history according to 
Herodotus) in Diodorus ; MarQalog . . . ypatirj irapadovS to tear' avTov evayyekiov (Mat- 
thew having but in writing the Gospel according to him) in Eusebius (H. Eccl. iii. 
24) ; — but this preposition must have this sense in our title. For, 1. The titles of our 
four Gospels bear too close a resemblance to each other to have come from the 
authors of these writings ; they must have been framed by the Church .when it 
formed the collection of the Gospels. Now the opinion of the Church, as far as we 
can trace it, has always been, that these writings were composed by the persons 
named in the titles. 2. With respect to the third Gospel in particular, no other sense 
is possible. Apostles and eye-witnesses, such as Matthew or John, might have 
created an original conception of the Gospel, and afterward a different writer might 
have produced a narrative of the ministry of Jesus according to this type. But this 
supposition is not applicable to persons so secondary and dependent as Luke or Mark. 

This Luke, whom the title designates as the author of our Gospel, can be no other 
than the companion of Paul. The evangelical history mentions no other person of 
this name. As to the term Gospel, it appears to us veiy doubtful whether in our 
four titles it indicates the writings themselves. This term applies rather, as through- 
out the New Testament, to the facts related, to the contents of the books, to the 
coming of Christ — this merciful message of God to mankind. The complement 
understood after evayyekiov is Qeoi ; comp. Rom 1 : 1. This good news, though one 
in itself, is presented to the world under four different aspects in these four narra- 
tives. The meaning then is, ' The good news of the coming of Christ, according to 
the version of .. . ." It is the evayyekiov TSTpd/uop^ov, the Gospel with four faces, 
of which Irenaeus still speaks toward the end of the second century, even after the 
term Gospel had been already applied by Justin to the written Gospels. 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE, 33 

PROLOGUE. 

Chap. 1 : 1-4. 

The first of our synoptic Gospels opens with a genealogy. This mode of entering 
upon the subject transports us into a completely Jewish world. This preamble is, as 
it were, a continuation of the genealogical registers of Genesis ;. in the (3i(31oS 
yeveoeus of Matthew (1 : 1) we have again the Elle Tholedoth of Moses. 

How different Luke's prologue, and in what an entirely different atmosphere it 
places us from the first ! Not only is it written in most classical Greek, but it 
reminds us by its contents of the similar preambles of the most illustrious Greek his- 
torians, especially those of Herodotus and Thucydides. The more thoroughly we 
examine it, the more we find of that delicacy of sentiment and refinement of mind 
which constitute the predominant traits of the Hellenic character. Baur, it is true, 
thought he discerned in it the work of a forger. Ewald, on the contrarj-, admires its 
true simplicity, noble modesty, and terse conciseness.* It appears to us, as to Holtz- 
mann,f " that between these two opinions the choice is not difficult." The author 
does not seek to put himself in the rank of the Christian authorities ; he places him- 
self modestly among men of the second order. He feels it necessary to excuse the 
boldness of his enterprise, by referring to the numerous analogous attempts that have 
preceded his own. He does not permit himself to undertake the work of writing a 
Gospel history until he has furnished himself with all the aids fitted to enable him to 
attain the lofty aim he sets before him. There is a striking contrast between his 
frank and modest attitude and that of a forger. It excludes even the ambitious part 
of a secretary of the Apostle Paul, which tradition has not been slow to claim for the 
author of our Gospel. 

This prologue is not least interesting for the information it contains respecting the 
earliest attempts at writing histories of the Gospel, Apart from these first lines of 
Luke, we know absolutely nothing definite about the more ancient narratives of the 
life of Jesus which preceded the composition of our Gospels. Therefore every 
theory as to the origin of the synoptics, which is not constructed out of the materials 
furnished by this preface, runs the risk of being thrown aside as a tissue of vain 
hypotheses the day after it has seen the light. 

This introduction is a dedication, in which Luke initiates the reader into the idea, 
method, and aim of his work. He is far from being the first who has attempted to 
handle this great subject (ver. 1). Numerous written narratives on the history of 
Jesus are already in existence ; they all of them rest on the oral narrations of the 
apostles (ver. 2). But while drawing also on this original source, Luke has collected 
more particular information, in order to supplement, select, and properly arrange the 
materials for which the Church is indebted to apostolic tradition. His aim, lastly, is 
to furnish his readers, by this connected account of the facts, with the means of 
establishing their certainty (ver. 4). 

Vers. 1-4. " Since, as is known, many have undertaken to compose a narrative of 
the events which have been accomplished among us, (2) in conformity with that 
which they haye handed down to us who were eye-witnesses of them from the begin- 
ning, and who became ministers of the word, (3) I have thought good also myself, 

* " Jahrbiicher," ii. p. 128. f "Die Synoptischen Evangelien," p. 398. 



34 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

after carefully informing myself of all these facts from their commencement, to write 
a consecutive account of them for thee, most excellent Theophilus, (4) in order that 
thou mightest know the immovable certainty of the instructions which thou hast 
received." * This period, truly Greek in its style, has been composed with particular 
care. We do not find a style like it in all the New Testament, except at the end of 
the Acts and in the Epistle to the Hebrews. As to the thought of this prologue, it 
cannot be better summed up than in these lines of Tholuck. "Although not an 
immediate witness of the facts that took place, I have none the less undertaken, fol- 
lowing the example of many others, to publish an account of them according to the 
information I have gathered." f 

The conjunction ETreidi/Trep is found nowhere else in the New Testament ; it has a 
certain solemnity. To the idea of since (ene'i), d'r) adds that of notoriety : " since, as 
is well known ;" rzep draws attention to the relation between flie great number of 
these writings and the importance of the events related : It is so (dif), and it could not 
be otherwise (frep). The relation between the since thus defined and the principal 
verb, 1 have thought good, is easy to seize. If my numerous predecessors have not 
been blamed, why should I be blamed, who am only walking in their steps ? The 
term iTrexeipijcav. have undertaken, involves no blame of the skill of these predecessors, 
as several Fathers have thought ; the 1 have thought good also myself is sufficient to 
exclude this supposition. This expression is suggested by the greatness of the task, 
and contains a slight allusion to the insufficiency of the attempts hitherto made to 
accomplish it. 

The nature of these older writings is indicated by the term avara^aaQai dtriyTjoiv, to 
set in order a narrative. It is a question, as Thiersch % says, of an attempt at arrange- 
ment. Did this arrangement consist in the harmonizing of a number of separate 
writings into a single whole, so as to make a consecutive history of them ? In this 
case, we should have to admit that the writers of whom Luke speaks had already 
found in the Church a number of short writings on particular events, which they 
had simply united : their work would thus constitute a second step in the develop- 
ment of the writing of the Gospel history. But the expression, " in conformity with 
that which they have handed down to us," hardly leaves room for intermediate ac- 
counts between the apostolic tradition and the writings of which Luke speaks. The 
notion of arrangement, then, refers rather to the facts themselves which these authors 
had co-ordinated in such a way as to make a consecutive narrative of them. The 
term diegesis designates not, as Schleiermacher maintained, recitals of isolated facts, 
but a complete narrative. 

What idea should we form of these writings, and are they to be ranked amongthe 
sources on which Luke has drawn ? Certain extra-canonical Gospels, which criticism 

* A literal translation of M. Godet's rendering of Luke's preface is given here, 
for the sake of harmonizing the text with the verbal comments which follow in the 
next paragraph ; but, except when something turns on our author's rendering, the 
passages commented on will be given in the words of the A. Y. A close and happy 
translation of the original Greek into French does not always admit of being repro- 
duced literally in English, and a free translation of a translation is of little service for 
purposes of exegesis. — Note by the Translator. 

■f " Glaubwiirdigk. der evang. Gesch." p. 143. 

X " Versuch zur Herstellung des historischen Standpunkts fiir die Kritik der 
Neutestamentl. Schr." p. 164 (a work which we cannot too strongly recommend to 
beginners, although we nre far from sharing all its views). 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 35 

has sometimes regarded as prior to Luke's, may be thought of —that of the Hebrews, 
for example, in which Lessing was disposed to find the common source of our three 
synoptics ; or that of Marcion, which Ritschl and Baur regarded as the principal 
document reproduced by Luke.* But does not tradition exhibit itself in these writ- 
ings in a form already perceptibly altered, and very far removed from the primitive 
purity and freshness which characterize our canonical Gospels ? They are, then, 

later than Luke. 

Or does Luke allude to our Gospels of Matthew and Mark ? This is maintained 
by those who think that Luke wrote after Matthew and Mark (Hug), or only after 
Matthew (Griesbach, etc.). But however little Luke shared in the traditional 
opinion which attributed the first Gospel to the Apostle Matthew, he could not speak 
of that writing as he speaks here ; for he clearly opposes to the writers of the tradi- 
tion (the noMioi, ver. 1), the apostles who were the authors of it. It may be affirmed, 
from the connection of ver. 2 with ver. 1, that Luke was not acquainted with a single 
written Gospel emanating from an apostle. As to the collection of the " Logia" 
(discourses of the Lord), which some attribute to Matthew, it certainly would not be 
excluded by Luke's expressions ; for the term diegesis denotes a recital, a historical 
narrative. Hug, in his desire to save his hypothesis, according to which Luke made 
use of Matthew, explained vers. 1 and 2 in this sense : " Many have undertaken to 
compose written Gospels similar to those which the apostles bequeathed to 
us. . ." But this sense would require onola (f3if3?ua) instead of /<a0ws,f and has not 
been accepted by any one. As to the Gospel of Mark, Luke's expressions might 
certainly suit this writing. For, according to tradition, Mark made use in his narra- 
tive of the accounts of an eye-witness, St. Peter. But still it may be questioned 
whether Luke would have employed the term undertake in speaking of a work which 
was received in the Church as one of the essential documents of the life of Jesus. 
For the rest, exegesis alone can determine whether Luke really had Mark before him 
either in its present or in a more ancient form. It appears probable, therefore, to 
me, that the works to which Luke alludes are writings really unknown and lost. 
Their incompleteness condemned them to extinction, in proportion as writings of 
superior value, such as our synoptics, spread through the Church. 

As to whether Luke availed himself of these writings, and in any way embodied 
them in his own work, he does not inform us. But is it not probable, since he was 
acquainted with them, that he would make some use of them? Every aid would 
appear precious to him in a work the importance of which he so deeply felt. 

The subject of these narratives is set forth in expressions that have a touch of 
solemnity: "the events which have been accomplished among us. " HXijpo<f>opetv \s 
a word analogous in composition and meaning to Tekecfyopelv {to bring to an end, to 
maturity, 8 : 14). It signifies, when it refers to a fact, to bring it to complete 
accomplishment (2 Tim. 4 : 5, to accomplish the ministry ; ver. 17, to accomplish [to 
finish rendering] the testimony) ; and when it refers to a person it means to cause 
him to attain inward fulness [uf conviction], that is to say, a conviction which leaves 
no room for doubt (Rom. 4 : 21, 14 : 5 ; Heb. 10 : 22, etc.). With a substantive such 
as irpdy/uara, the second sense is inadmissible. Nevertheless, it has been defended by 
some of the Fathers, by some modern interpreters, as Beza, Grotius, Olshausen, and 

* Ritschl has since withdrawn this assertion. 
f Thiersch, " Versuch," etc., p. 211. 



36 COMMENTAEY ON ST. LUKE. 

by Meyer, who concludes from 2 Tim. 4 : 17 that Tr/iypoQeiadat may also be applied to 
thiDgs in the sense of being believed. But when Paul says, " In order that the testi- 
mony might be accomplished, and that all the Gentiles might hear it," the last words 
plainly show that accomplished signifies not fully believed, but fully rendered. This 
term, which has more weight than the simple irTitjpovv, is designedly chosen here to 
indicate that these events were not simple accidents, but accomplished a preconceived 
plan; the divine thought carried into execution was, as it were, a measure which 
tilled up itself. Doubtless, what has led many interpreters to prefer the sense of 
fully believed, is the complement among us. This is said that the facts of the 
Gospel were accomplished not only in the presence of believers, but before the Jewish 
people and the whole world. This is true ; but was not Jesus from the beginning 
surrounded by a circle of disciples, chosen to be witnesses of His life ? It is with 
this meaning that John says, 20 : 30, "Jesus did many other miracles in the presence 
of His disciples ;" and 1 : 14, "He dwelt among us (ev vplv), and we saw His glory" 
—a sentence in which the last words limit the us to the circle of believers. The mean- 
ing is the same here. In ver. 2 the sense of the word us is more limited still. Here 
us denotes the Church with the apostles ; in ver. 2, the Church apart from the 
apostles. Bleek extends the meaniug of the word us, in ver. 1, to the whole con- 
temporary generation, both within and without the Church. But Luke, writing for 
believers, could scarcely use us in such a general sense as this. In this expression, 
" the events accomplished among us," did the author include also the contents of the 
book of the Acts, and did he intend the preface to apply to the two books, so that 
the Acts would be just the second volume of the Gospel ? The words among us 
would be more easily explained in this case, and the mention made of the apostles as 
ministers of the word (ver. 2) mvghOead us to this supposition. It is not probable, 
however, that Luke would have applied to the facts related in the Acts the expressions 
napadoaiS, tradition (v r er. 2), and Kar^xv^^, instruction (ver. 4). The subject of apos- 
tolical tradition and catechetical instruction could only be the history and teaching of 
Jesus. It is impossible, therefore, to infer from this preface that when Luke wrote 
his Gospel he had in view the composition of the book of the Acts. 

Ver. 2. Tradition emanating from the apostles was the common source, according 
to ver. 2, of all the first written narratives. The general accuracy of these accounts 
follows from mQ6s, in conformity wiiJi that which. This conjunction can only refer 
to the principal thought of ver. 1, to compose a narrative, and not to the secondary 
idea, ire7rA,7jpo(popi]uevuv, as Olshausen thinks, who translates, " fully believed in con- 
formity with the account of the first witnesses." As the two substantives, avroirrai 
and vTTijperaL, witnesses and ministers, have each certain defining expressions which 
especially belong to them (the first, art apxm , from the beginning, and the second, 
yevo/nevoi, become, and tov 7,byov, of tlie word), the most simple construction appears to 
us to be to regard ol, the, as a pronoun, and make it the subject of the proposition : 
they (the men about to be pointed out). This subject is defi%ed by the two following 
substantives, which are in apposition, and indicate the qualification in virtue of 
which these men became the authors of the tradition. 1. Witnesses from the begin- 
ning. The word apxy, beginning, in this context, can only refer to the commencement 
of the ministry of Jesus, particularly to His baptism, as the starting-point of those 
things which have been accomplished among us. Comp. Acts 1 : 21, 22, for the 
sense ; and for the expression, John 15 : 27, 16 : 4. Olshausen would extend the 
application of this title of witnesses from the beginning to the witnesses of the birth 



COMMENTARY 0]S ST. LUKE. 37 

and infancy of Jesus. But the expression became ministers of the word does not 
allow of this application. 2. Ministers of the word ; become ministers, as the text 
literally reads. This expression is in contrast with the preceding. These men began 
afterward to be ministers of the word ; they only became such after Pentecost. It 
was then that their part as witnesses was transformed into that of preachers. The 
sense then is : " Those who were witnesses from the commencement, and who after- 
ward became ministers of the word." If virriphai, ministers, is thus taken as a second 
noun of apposition with ol, parallel to the first, there is no longer any difficulty in 
referring the complement rov Aoyov, of the word, to vnrjpeTai, ministers, alone, and I 
taking this word in its ordinary sense of preaching the Gospel. This also disposes of 
the reason which induced certain Father's (Origen. Athanaisus) to give the term word 
the meaning of the eternal Word (John 1 : 1), which is very forced in this connec- 
tion. Only in this way could they make this complement depend simultaneously on 
the two substantives, witnesses and ministers. The same motive led Beza, Grotius, 
and Bleek to understand the term word here in the sense in which it is frequently 
taken — the thing related : " eye- witnesses and ministers of the Gospel history." But 
in passages where the term word bears this meaning, it is fixed by some defining ex- 
pression : thus, atver. 4 by the relative proposition and, in Acts 8 :21, 15 : 6 (which 
Bleek quotes), by a demonstrative pronoun. 

With the third verse we reach the principal proposition. Luke places himself by 
the kcc/lcoI, myself also, in the same rank as his predecessors. He does not possess, 
any more than they, a knowledge of the Gospel history as a witness ; he belongs to 
the second generation of the vpej-S, its (ver. 2), which is dependent on the narratives 
of the apostles. Some Italic mss. add here to mihi, et spiritui sancto (it has pleased me 
and the Holy Spirit), a gloss taken from Acts 15 : 28, which clearly shows in what 
direction the tradition was gradually altered. 

While placing himself in the same rank as his predecessors, Luke nevertheless 
claims a certain superiority in comparison with them. Otherwise, why add to their 
writings, which are already numerous (ttoIaol), a fresh attempt ? This superiority is 
the result of his not having confined himself to collecting the apostolic traditions 
current in the Church. Before proceeding to write, he obtained exact information, 
by means of which he was enabled to select, supplement, and arrange the materials 
furnished by those oral narratives which his predecessors had contented themselves 
with reproducing just as they were. The verb irapaKoXovBelv, to foUoic step by step, is 
not used here in the literal sense ; this sense would require tcuoiv to be taken as 
masculine : all the apostles, and thus would lead to an egregiously false idea ; the 
author could not have accompanied all the apostles ! The verb, therefore, must be 
taken in the figurative sense which it frequently has in the classics : to study any- 
thing point by point ; thus Demosth. de corona, 53 ; irapanolovBrjuuS role irpayfiaoiv ' 
an' dpxJjS. Comp. 2 Tim. 3 : 10, where we see the transition from the purely literal 
to the figurative meaning. The navra, all things, are the events related (ver. 1). 
Luke might have put the participle in the accusative : 7:apaKo}.ovBr]K.bTa ; but then he 
would only have indicated the succession of the two actions — the acquisition of in- 
formation, and the composition which followed it. This is hot his thought. The 
dative makes the information obtained a quality inherent in his person, which consti- 
tutes his qualification for the accomplishment of this great work. 

Luke's information bore particularly on three points : 1. He sought first of all to 
go back to the origin of the facts, to the very starting-point of this res Christiana 



38 ' COMMENTAEY OK ST. LUKE. 

which, he desired to describe. This is expressed in the word avudev, literally from 
above, from the very beginning. The author compares himself to a traveller who 
tries to discover the source of a river, in order that he may descend it again and fol- 
low its entire course. The apostolic tradition, as current in the Church, did not do 
this ; it began with the ministry of John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus. It 
is in this form that we find it set forth in the Gospel of Mark, and summarized in 
Peter's preaching at the house of Cornelius, and in Paul's at Antioch in Pisidia 
(Acts 10 : 37 et seq., 13 : 23 et seq.). The author here alludes to the accounts contained 
in the first two chapters of his Gospel. 2. After having gone back to the commence- , 
ment of the Gospel history, he endeavored to reproduce as completely as possible its 
entire course (irdoiv, all things, all the particular facts which it includes). Apostolic 
tradition probably had a more or less fragmentary character ; the apostles not relating 
every time the whole of the facts, but only those which best answered to the circum- 
stances in which they were preaching. This is expressly said of St. Peter on the testi- 
mony of Papias, or of the old presbyter on whom he relied : npog rd<; X9 ELa ^ enoieiro 
tuS didaona?uas (he chose each time the facts appropriate to the needs of his hearers). 
Important omtesions would easily result from this mode of evangelization. By this 
word, -Kdaiv, all things, Luke probably alludes to that part of his Gt)spel (9 : 51, 18 : 14), 
by which the tradition, as we have it set forth in our first two synoptics, is en- 
riched with a great number of facts and new discourses, and with the account of a 
long course of evangelization probably omitted, until Luke gave it, in the public nar- 
ration. 3. He sought to confer on the Gospel history that exactness and precision 
which tradition naturally fails to have, after being handed about for some time from 
mouth to mouth. We know how quickly, in similar narratives, characteristic traits 
are effaced, and the facts transposed. Diligent and scrupulous care is required after- 
ward to replace the stones of the edifice in their right position, and give them their 
exact form and sharpness of edge. Now the third Gospel is distinguished, as we 
shall see. by the constant effort to trace the continued progressive development of the 
work of Jesus, to show the connection of the facts, to place each discourse in its his- 
torical settiDg, and to exhibit its exact purport. 

By means of this information bearing upon the three points indicated, the author 
hopes he shall be qualified to draw a consecutive picture, reproducing the actual 
course of events : Kade^g ypdtpai, to write in order. It is impossible in this connection 
to understand the phrase in order in the sense of a systematic classification, as Ebrard 
prefers ; here the term must stand for a chronological order. The term KaBeijf/S is not 
found in the New Testament except in Luke. 

Yer. 4. And now 7 , what is the aim of the work thus conceived ? To strengthen 
the faith of Theophilus and his readers in the reality of this extraordinary history. 
On Theophilus, see the Introduction, sec. 3. The epithet icpdTioTos is applied several 
times, in the writings of Luke, to high Roman officials, such as Felix and Festus : 
Acts 23 : 26, 24 : 3, 26 : 25. It is frequently met with in medals of the time. Luke 
wishes to show his friend and patron that he is not unmindful of the exalted rank he 
occupies. But in his opinion, one mention suffices. He does not deem it necessary 
to repeat this somewhat ceremonious form at the beginning of the book of the Acts. 
The work executed on the plan indicated is to give Theophilus the means of ascer- 
taining and verifying (erriyivwoiiEiv) the irrefragable certainly {actydleiav) of the 
instruction which he had already received. The construction of this last phrase has 
been understood in three ways. The most complicated is to understand a second 



COMMENTARY OK . ST. LUKE. 39 

irepl : ttjv ao^aTieiav irepl tcjv Xoyuv irepl <Lv Karrjxri^V^ ', the second and more simple, 
adopted by Bleek, is to make irept depend not on aotyaheiav, but on KaTrjxv^VC '• tv v 
aayakuav tuv 2,6yov irepl 6v Karrix^m. But the example KaT7]xv^V GClv Kepi gov (Acts 
21 : 21), which Bleek quotes, is not analogous ; for there the object of irepl is 
personal : "they are informed of thee." The simplest construction is this: t?> 
aatyakeiavirepl rdv loyuv ovS Kar^xv^V^, certitude touching the instruction which . . . 
Comp. for this form KaTTJxelodal n, Acts 28 : 25 ; Gal. 6 : 6. The term Karrixeiv, 
to cause a sound to penetrate into the ears, and thereby also a fact, an idea, into the 
mind, may simp]}' mean that intelligence of the great events of which Luke speaks 
had reached Theophilus by public report (Acts 21 : 21, 24) ; or it may denote in- 
struction properly so called, as Rom. 2 : 18 ; Acts 18: 25, Gal. 6:6; neither the 
expressions nor the context appear to me to offer sufficient reasons to decide which. 
Perhaps the truth lies between these two extreme opinions. Theophilus might have 
talked with Christian evangelists without receiving such catechetical instruction, in 
the strict sense of the term, as was often given them when a church was founded 
(Thiersch, " Versuch," p. 122 et seg.) ; and then have applied to Luke with a view 
to obtain through his labors something more complete. The word aacpd?.eiav, is 
relegated to the end, to express with greater force the idea of the irrefragable cer- 
tainty of the facts of the Gospel. 

It is a very nice question whether the term loyot, which we have translated 
instruction, here refers solely to the historical contents of the Gospel, or also to the 
religious meaning of the facts, as that comes out of the subsequent narrative. In the 
former case, Luke would simply mean that the certainty of each particular fact was 
established by its relation to the whole, which could not well be invented. An extraor- 
dinary fact, which, presented separately, appears impossible, becomes natural and 
rational when it takes its place in a well-certified sequence of facts to which it 
belongs.* In strictness, this meaning might be sufficient. But when we try to 
identify ourselves completely with the author's mind, do we not see, in this instruc- 
tion of which he speaks, something more than a simple narrative of facts ? Does 
not the passage in 1 Cor. 15 : 1-4 show that, in apostolic instruction, religious com- 
ment was inseparable from the historical text ? Was it not with r- view to faith that 
facts were related in the preaching of the Gospel ? and does not faith, in order to 
appropriate them, require an exposition of their meaning and importance ? The 
instruction already received by Theophilus refers, then, without cloubt to the Gospel 
history, but not as isolated from its religious interpretation ; and since we have to do 
here with a reader belonging to a circle of Christians of heathen origin, the significa- 
tion given to this history could be none other than that twofold principle of the uni- 
versality and free grace of salvation which constituted the substance of what Paul 
called, his Gospel. Luke's object, then, was to relate the Christian fact in such a way 
as to show that, from its very starting-point, the work and preachiug of Jesus Him- 
self had had no other meaning. This was the only way of making evangelical 

* The Catholic missionaries, Hue and Gabet, in their " Travels in Tartary" (vol. 
ii. p. 136), relate as follows : " We had adopted [in regard to the Buddhist priests 
among whom they lived] an entirely historical mode of teaching. . . . Proper 
names and precise dates made much more impression on them than the most logical 
arguments. . . . The close connection which they remarked in the history of 
the Old and New Testaments was, in their view, a demonstration." Is not that the 
leaders ypdxbat Iva eiriyvtic; . . . T7)v aotyakeLavl 



40 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

instruction, as formulated by St. Paul, rest on an immovable basis. As a conse- 
quence, this apostle ceased to appear an innovator, and became the faithful expositor 
of the teaching- of Jesus. To write a Gospel with this view was to introduce beneath 
the vast ecclesiastical edifice raised by Paul, the only foundation which could in the 
end prevent it from falling. For whatever there is in the Church that does not 
emanate from Jesus, holds a usurped and consequently a transitory place. This 
would be true even of the spiritualism of St. Paul, if it did nut proceed from Jesus 
Christ. Certainly it does not therefore follow, that the acts and words of Jesus 
which Luke relates, and in which the universalist * tendency of the Gospel is mani- 
fested, were invented or modified by him in the interest of this tendency. Is it not 
important for him, on the contrary, to prove to his readers that this tendency was not 
infused into the. Gospel by Paul, but is a legitimate deduction from the work and 
teaching of Jesus Christ ? The essential truth of this claim will be placed beyond all 
suspicion when we come to prove, on the one hand, that the author has in no way 
tried to mutilate the narrative by suppressing those facts which might yield a differ- 
ent tendency from that which he desired to justify ; on the other, that the tendency 
which he favors is inseparable from the course of the facts themselves. 

If we have correctly apprehended the meaning of the last words of the prologue, 
we must expect to find in the third Gospel the counterpart of the first. As that is 
" A Treatise on the right of Jesus to the Messianic sovereignty of Israel," this is " A 
Treatise on the right of the heathen to share in the Messianic kingdom founded by 
Jesus." In regard to the earliest writings on the subject of the Gospel history, we 
may draw from this preface four important results : 1. The common source from 
which the earliest written narratives of the history of the ministry of Jesus proceeded 
was the oral testimony of the apostles — the Stdaxv rfiv qivootoIuv, which is spoken of 
in Acts 2 : 42 a the daily food dispensed by them to the rising Church. 2, The work 
of committing this apostolic tradition to writing began early, not later than the period 
of transition from the first to the second Christian generation ; and it was attempted 
by numerous authors at the same time. Nothing in the text of Luke authorizes us 
to think, with Gieseler, that this was done only among the Greeks. From the earli- 
est times, the art of writing prevailed among the Jews ; children even were not igno- 
rant of it (Judg. 8 : 14). 3. In composing his Gospel Luke possessed the apostolic 
tradition, not merely in. the oral form in which it circulated in the churches, but also 
reduced to writing m a considerable number of these early works ; and these consti- 
tuted two distinct sources. 4. But he did not content himself with these two means 
of information ; he made use, in addition, of personal investigations designed to com- 
plete, correct, and arrange the materials which he derived from these two sources. 

Having obtained these definite results, it only remains to see whether they contain 
the elements required for the solution of the problem of the origin of our synoptics, 
and of the composition of our Gospel in particular. We shall examine them for this 
purpose at the conclusion of the work. 

* It is hardly needful to remind readers that the " universalist" of Godet is not a 
denominational title, but a reference to the offer of the Gospel by Paul and others to 
all men, as distinguished from the narrowness of Judaizing teachers. — J..H. 



FIRST PART. 



THE NAKRATIVES OF THE INFANCY. 

Chap. 1 : 5, 2 : 52. 

Both the first and the third Gospel open with a cycle of narratives relating to the 
birth and childhood of Jesus. These narratives do not appear to have formed part of 
the tradition bequeathed to the Church by the apostles (ver. 2). At least, neither the 
Gospel of Mark, the document which appears to correspond most nearly with the type 
of the primitive preaching, nor the oldest example we have of this early preaching, 
Peter's discourse in the house of Cornelius (Acts 10 : 37-48), go further back than the 
ministry of John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus. The reason, doubtless, for 
this is, that edification was the sole aim of apostolic preaching, It was intended to 
lay the foundation of the faith ; and in order to do this, the apostles had only to tes- 
tify concerning what they had themselves seen and heard during the time they had 
been with Jesus (John 15 : 27 ; Acts 1 : 21, 22). 

But these facts with which their preaching commenced supposed antecedent cir 
cumstances. Actual events of such an extraordinary nature could not have happened 
without preparation. This Jesus, whom Mark himself designates from the outset (1 : 1) 
as the Son of God, could not have fallen from heaven as a full-grown man of thirty 
years of age. Just as a botanist, when he admires a new flower, will not rest until 
he has dug it up by the roots, while an ordinary observer will be satisfied with seeing 
its blossom ; so among believers, among the Greeks especially, there must have been 
thoughtful minds — Luke and Theophilus are representatives of such — who felt the 
need of supplying what the narratives of the official witnesses of the ministry of 
Jesus were deficient in respecting the origin of 'this history. 

The historical interest itself awakened by faith must have tended to dissipate the 
obscurity which enveloped the first appearance of a being so exceptional as He who 
was the subject of the evangelical tradition. In proportion as the first enthusiasm of 
faith gave place, at the transition period between the first and the second generation 
of Christians, to careful reflection, this need would be felt with growing intensity. 
Luke felt constrained to satisfy it in his first two chapters. It is evident that the 
contents of this " Gospel of the Infancy" proceed neither from apostolic tradition 
(ver. 2), nor from any of the numerous writings to which allusion is made (ver. 1), 
but that they are derived from special information which Luke had obtained. It is 
to these two chapters especially that Luke alludes in the third verse of the prologue 
{avuQev, from the beginning). 

A similar need must have been felt, probably at the same time, in the Jewish- 
Christian world ; only it arose out of another principle. There was no demand there 



42 COMMEtfTAKY ON ST. LUKE. 

for the satisfaction of the historic sense. In those circles, interest in the Messianic 
question prevailed over all others. They wanted to know whether from the begin- 
ning the child, as well as afterward the grown man, had not been divinely pointed 
out as the Messiah. The first two chapters of St. Matthew are plainly intended to 
meet this need. 

In this way we obtain a natural explanation of the extension of the Gospel history 
to the first commencement of the life of Jesus, and just in those different directions 
which are to be observed in our two Gospels. 

But does not this imply consequences somewhat unfavorable to the truth of the 
narratives comprised in these two cycles, Luke 1-2 and Matt. 1-2 ? It is admit- 
ted : 1. That these. narratives of the infancy lack the guarantee of apostolic testimony. 
2. That the wants which we have pointed out might easily call into activity the 
Christian imagination, and, in the absence of positive history, seek their satisfaction 
in legend. These narratives are actually regarded in this light, not only by Strauss 
or Baur, but even by such men as Meyer, Weizsacker, and Keim, who do not gener- 
ally avow themselves partisans of the mythical interpretation. What in their view 
renders these narratives suspicious is their poetical character, and the marvels with 
which they abound (a great number of angelic appearances and of prophetic songs) 
the complete silence of the other New Testament writings respecting the miraculous 
birth (there is no mention of it in Paul, or even in John) ; certain facts of the subse- 
quent history (the unbelief of the brethren of Jesus and of his own mother) which 
appear incompatible with the miraculous circumstances of this birth ; contradictions 
between Matthew and Luke on several important points ; and lastly, historical 
errors in Luke's narrative, which may be proved by comparing it with the facts of 
Jewish and Roman history. 

We can only examine these various reasons as we pursue in detail the study of 
the text. As to the way in which the wants we have indicated were satisfied, we 
would observe : 1. That it is natural to suppose, since the matter in question was 
regarded as sacred both by the writers and the Church, that the more simple and 
reverential process of historical investigation would be employed before having 
recourse to fiction. It is only at a later stage, when the results obtained by this 
means are no longer sufficient to satisfy curiosity and a corrupted faith, that inven- 
tion comes in to the aid of history. The apocryphal Gospels, which made their 
appearance as early as the end of the first century, indicate the time when this change 
was in operation. Luke, if we may trust his preface, belongs to the first period, that 
of investigation. 2. It is evident that Luke himself, on the authority of information 
which he had obtained, believed in the reality of the facts which he relates in his first 
two chapters as firmly as in that of all the rest of the Gospel history. His narrative 
bears numerous marks of its strictly historical character : the course of Abia, the city 
of Galilee named Nazareth, the city of the hill-country of Juda, where dwelt the 
parents of John the Baptist,the census of Cyrenius, the eighty-four years' widowhood 
of Anna the prophetess, the physical and moral growth of Jesus as a child and young 
man, his return to Nazareth and settlement there — all these details leave us no room 
to doubt the completely historical sense which the author himself attached to these 
narratives. If, then, this part lacks the authority of apostolic testimony, it is guar- 
anteed by the religious convictions of the author, and by his personal assurance of 
the value of the oral or written sources whence he derived his knowledge of these 
facts. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 43 

The Gospel of the Infancy in Luke comprises seven narratives : 

1. The announcement of the birth of the forerunner, 1 : 5-25 ; 2. The announce- 
ment of the birth of Jesus, 1 : 26-38 ; 3. The visit of Mary to Elizabeth, 1 : 39-56. 
These three narratives form the first cycle. 

4. The birth of the forerunner, 1 : 57-80 ; 5. The birth of Jesus, 2 : 1-20 ; 6. The 
circumcision and presentation of Jesus, 2 : 21-40. These three narratives form a 
second cycle. 

7. The first journey of Jesus to Jerusalem, 2 : 41-52. This seventh narrative is, 
as it were, the crown of the two preceding cycles. 

FIRST NARRATIVE. — CHAP. 1 : 5-25. 

Announcement of the Birth of John the Baptist. 

The first words of the narrative bring us back from the midst of Greece, whither 
we were transported by the prologue, into a completely Jewish world. The very style 
changes its character. From the fifth verse it is so saturated with Aramaisms that the 
contrast with thefour preceding verses resulting from it obliges us to admit, either that 
the author artificially modifies his language in order to adapt it to his subject, and so 
produces an imitation — a refinement of method scarcely probable — or that he is dealing 
with ancient documents, the Aramaic coloring of which he endeavors to preserve as 
faithfully as possible. This second supposition alone appears admissible. But it may 
assume two forms. Either the author simply copies a Greek document which already 
had the Hebraistic character with which we are struck ; or the document in his hands 
is in the Aramean tongue, and be translates it into Greek. Bleek maintains the first 
view. We shall examine, at the seventy-eighth verse of chap. 1, his principal proof.. 
As all the most characteristic peculiarities of Luke's style are found in these two 
chapters, the second alternative is by this circumstance rendered more probable. But 
in this case it is asked, Why Luke, translating from the Aramean, did not reproduce 
his document in purer Greek, as he was perfectly competent to do ; comp. vers. 1-4. 
And he is blamed for his servility as a translator. It is exactly as if M. de Barante 
were blamed for preserving with all possible fidelity, in his history of the Dukes of 
Burgundy, the style of the ancient chronicles from which the contents of his narra- 
tive are drawn ; or M. Augustin Thierry, for " having kept as near as he possibly 
could to the language of the ancient historians."* So far from deserving the blame 
of his critics, Luke has shown himself a man of exquisite taste, in that he has pre- 
served throughout his narrative all the flavor of the documents he uses, and has 
availed himself of the incomparable flexibility of the Greek language to reproduce in 
all their purity of substance and form, and give, as it were, a tracing of the precious 
documents which had fallen into his hands. 

This first narrative describes : 1. The trial of Zacharias and Elizabeth (vers. 5-7). 
2. The promise of deliverance (vers. 8-22). 3. The accomplishment of this promise 
(vers. 23-25). 

1. The Trial: vers. 5-7. f For 400 years direct communications between the Lord 
and his people had ceased To the lengthened seed-time of the patriarchal, Mosaic. 

* " Histoire de la Oouquete d'Angleterre," etc., Introd. p. 9. 

\ Ver. 5. &. B. C. D. L. X. Z. and some Mnn., yvvrj avru, instead of v yvvrj avrov, the 
reading of T. R. 15 Mjj. the Mnn. Syr. ItP leri <i ue . Ver. 6. J*. B. C. X., evawiov, in- 
stead of eviomov, the reading of T. R. i8 Mjj. the Mnn. 



44 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

and prophetic periods, had succeeded a season of harvest. A fresh seed-time, the 
second and last phase of divine revelation, was about to open ; this time God would 
address Himself to the whole world. But when God begins a new work, He does not 
scornfully break with the instrument by which the past work has been effected. As 
it is from the seclusion of a convent that in the middle ages He will take the reformer 
of the Church, so it is from the loins of an Israelitish priest that he now causes to 
come forth the man who is to introduce the world to the renovation prepared for it. 
The temple itself, the centre of the theocracy, becomes the cradle of the new cove- 
nant, of the worship in spirit and in truth. There is, then, a divine suitability in the 
choice both of the actors and theatre of the scene which is about to take place. 

The days of Herod (ver. 5) designate the time of this prince's reign. This fact 
agrees with Matt. 2 : 1 et seq. , where the birth of Jesus is also placed in the reign of 
pf erod. It may be inferred from Matt. 2 : 19 that this birth happened quite at the 
end of this reign. According to Josephus, the death of Herod must have taken place 
in the spring of the year 750 u.c. Jesus, therefore, must have been born at latest in 
749, or quite at the beginning of 750. It follows from this, that in the fifth century 
our era was fixed at least four years too late. 

The title of Kiog of Judea had been decreed to Herod by the Senate on the 
recommendation of Antony and Octavius. The course of Abia was the eighteenth 
of the twenty-four courses or ephernerise into which, from David's time, the college 
of priests had been divided (1 Chron. 24 : 10). Each of these classes did duty for 
eight days, from one Sabbath to another, once every six months (2 Kings 11 : 9). 
'Eoq/Liepia, properly daily service ; thence : in rotation, returning on a fixed day ; 
thence : lastly, the group of persons subject to this rotation. As we know that the 
day on which the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed was the ninth of the fifth month 
of the year 823 u.c, that is to say, the 4th of August of the. year 70 of our era ; and 
as, according to the Talmud, it was the first ephemeria which was on duty that day, 
we may reckon, calculating backward, that in the year which must have preceded that 
in which Jesus was born, that is to say, probably in 748, the ephemeria of Abia was 
oh duty in the week from the 17th to the 23d of April, and in that from the 3d to the 
9th of October. Therefore John the Baptist would be born nine months after one of 
these two dates, aud Jesus six months later, consequently in the month of July, 749, 
or in the month of January, 750.* In this calculation, however, of the time of year 
to which the births of John and Jesus should be assigned, everything depends on the 
determination of the year of the birth of Jesus. But this is a question which is not 
yet decided with any certainty. 

The Hebraistic coloring of the style is seen particularly: 1st, in the expression 
h Tais i/fiepais C'D'n) ; 2dly, in the connection of propositions by means of the particle 
nac, instead of the Greek syntactical construction by means of relative pronouns and 
conjunctions ; 3dly, in the employment of the verb eyevero in the sense of i ( -pV The 
subject of eyevero is not, as is generally thought, the word iepevS, but rather the verb 
7/v, which must be understood in the three following propositions (comp. ver. 8, 
eyevero t'Aa^e). The Alex, reading, ywrj avrti, which is more uncouth and Hebraistic 
than v yvv?) avrov, is probably the true reading. The term righteous (ver. 6) indicates 
general conformity of conduct to the divine precepts; this quality does not abso- 
lutely exclude sin (comp. vers. 18-20). It simply supposes that the man humbly 

* " Wieseler, Chronolog. Synopsis der vier Evang." pp. 141-145. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 45 

acknowledges his sin, 'strives to make amends for it, and, aided from on high, strug- 
gles against it, The Byz. reading kvuiuov, in the. presence, under the eyes of, appears 
preferable to the Alexandrian reading havrlov, in the face of, before. God and man 
cannot be represented as being face to face in this passage, where God's judgment on 
man is in question (see at ver. 8). 'Evuntov answers to ijQ7, and expresses the inward 
reality of this righteousness. The two terms evrolai and dtKcuu/iara, commandments 
and ordinances, have been distinguished in different ways. The former appears to 
us to refer to the more general principles of the moral law — to the Decalogue, for 
example; the latter, to the mullitude of particular Levitical ordinances. Hunaiu/ia 
properly is, what God has declared righteous. As the expression before God brings 
out the inward truth of this righteousness, so the following, walking in ... in- 
dicates its perfect fidelity in practice. The term blameless no more excludes sin 
here than Phil. 3 : 6. The well-known description in Rom. 7 explains the sense in 
which this word must be taken. The germ of concupiscence may exist in the heart, 
even under the covering of the most complete external obedience. 

Ver. 7. In the heart of this truly theocratic family, so worthy of the divine bless- 
ing, a grievous want was felt. To have no children was a trial the. more deeply felt 
in Israel, that barrenness was regarded by the Jews as a mark of divine displeasure, 
according to Gen. 2. KaQon does not signify because that exactly, but in accordance 
with this, that. It is one of those terms which, in the New Testament, only occur 
in Luke's writings (19 : 9, and four times in the Acts). If, therefore, as Bleek 
thinks, Luke had found these narratives already composed in Greek, he must never- 
theless admit that he has modified their style. The last proposition cannot, it 
appears, depend on KaQon, seeing that ; for it would not be logical to say, " They had 
no children . . . seeing that they were both well stricken in ydars. " So, many 
make these last words an independent sentence. The position, however, of the verb 
jjuav at the end, tends rather to make this phrase depend on KaQon. To do this, it 
suffices to supply a thought : They had no children, and they retained but little hope 
of having any, seeing that . . ." The expression npofieprjKOTeS ev rals r/juepatg 
avTtiv is purely Hebraistic (Gen. 18 : 11, 24 : 1 ; Josh. 13 : 1 ; 1 Kings 1 : 1 — C^ID 1 !! 

an)- 

2. The promise of deliverance : vers. 8-22. This portion comprises : 1. vers. 8-17, 
The promise itself ; 2. vers. 18-22, The manner in which it was received. 

1. The narrative of the promise includes : the appearance (vers. 8-12), and the 
message (vers. 13-17), of the angel. 

The appearance of the angel : vers. 8-12.* The incense had to be offered, accord- 
ing to the law (Ex. 30 : 7, 8), every morning and evening. There was public prayer 
three times a day : at nine in the morning (Acts 2 : 15 ?), at noon (Acts 10 : 9), and at 
three in the afteraoon (Acts 3 : 1, 10 : 30.) The first and last of these acts of public 
prayer coincided with the offering of incense (Jos. Antiq. xiv. 4. 3). In the con- 
struction eyevETo e'Aaxe, the subject of the first verb is the act indicated by the second. 
"Evavn, in the face of, before, is suitable here ; for the officiating priest enacts a part 
in the front of the Divinity. The words, according to the custom of the priest's 
office (ver. 8), may be referred either to the established rotation of the courses 
(ver. 8), or to the use of the lot with a view to the assignment of each 

* Yer. 8. The Mnn. vary between evavn and evavnov. Ver. 10, &. B. E. and 13 
Mjj, put rov laov between rjv and ■Kpoaevxop.evov ; while the T. R., with A. C. D. K, 
If., put it before tjv. 



46 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

day's functions. In both cases, the extraordinary use of the lot would be worthy of 
mention. The reference of these words to what precedes appears to us more natural ; 
we regard them as a simple amplification of ev ry rd^ei: " the order of his course, 
according to the custom of the priest's office." On the use of the lot Oosterzee 
rightly observes that it proceeded from this, that nothing in the service of the sanctu- 
ary was to be left to man's arbitrary decision. The function of offering incense, 
which gave the priest the right to enter the holy place, was regarded as the most 
honorable of all. Further, according to the Talmud, the priest who had obtained it 
was not permitted to draw the lot a second time in the same week. Eiae?iBuv, having 
entered ; there was the honor ! This fact was at the same time the condition of the 
whole scene that followed. And that is certainly the reason why this detail, which 
is correctly understood by itself, is so particularly mentioned. Meyer and Bleek, not 
apprehending this design, find here an inaccuracy of expression, and maintain that 
with the infinitive Qv/udacu the author passes by anticipation from the notion of the 
fact to its historical realization. This is unnecessary ; elceWov is a pluperfect in 
reference to Qv/ituaaL : " It fell to him to offer incense after having entered." The 
term vaoS, temple, designates the buildings properly so called, in opposition to the 
different courts ; and the complement tcvpiov, of the Lord, expresses its character in 
virtue of which the Lord was about to manifest Himself in this house. 

The 10th verse mentions a circumstance which brings out the solemnity of the 
time, as the preceding circumstance brought out the solemnity of the place. The 
prayer of the people assembled in the court accompanied the offering of incense. 
There was a close connection between these two acts. The one was the typical, ideal, 
and therefore perfectly pure prayer ; the other the real prayer.which was inevitably im- 
perfect and defiled. The former covered the latter with its sanctity ; the latter com- 
municated to the former its reality and life. Thus they were the complement of 
each other. Hence their obligatory simultaneousness and their mutual connection 
are forcibly expressed by the dative rrj upa. The reading which puts tov Jiaov be- 
tween t)v and npocevxo/ievov expresses better the essential idea of the proposition 
contained in this participle. 

Ver. 11. Here, with the appearance of the angel, begins the marvellous character 
of the story which lays it open to the suspicion of criticism. And if, indeed, the 
Christian dispensation were nothing more than the natural development of the human 
consciousness advancing by its own laws, we should necessarily and unhesitatingly 
reject as fictitious this supernatural element, and at the same time everything else in 
the Gospel of a similar character. But if Christianity was an entirely new beginning 
(Verny) in history, the second and final creation of man, it was natural that an inter- 
' position on so grand a scale should be accompanied by a series of particular interposi- 
tions. It was even necessary. For how were the representatives of the ancient 
order of things, who had to co-operate in the new work, to be initiated into it, and 
their attachment won to it, except by this means ? According to the Scripture, we 
are surrounded by angels (2 Kings 6 : 17 ; Ps. 34 : 8), whom God employs to watch 
over us ; but in our ordinary condition we want the sense necessary to perceive their 
presence. For that, a condition of peculiar receptivity is required. This condition 
existed in Zacharias at this time. It had been created in him by the solemnity of the 
place, by the sacredness of the function he was about to perform, by his lively sym- 
pathy with all this people who were imploring Heaven for national deliverance, and, 
last of all, by the experience of his own domestic trial, the feeling of which was to be 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 47 

painfully revived by the favor about to be shown him. Under the influence of all 
these circunstances combine^, that internal sense which puts man in contact with 
the higher world was awakened in him. But the necessity of this inward predispo- 
sition in no way proves that the vision of Zacharias was merely the result of a high 
state of. moral excitement. Several particulars in the narrative make this explanation 
inadmissible, particularly these two : the difficulty with which Zacharias puts faith 
in the promise made to him, and the physical chastisement which is inflicted on him 
for his unbelief. These facts, in any case, render a simple psychological explanation 
impossible, and oblige the denier of the objectivity of the appearance to throw him- 
self upon the mythical interpretation. The term ayyelos Kvpiov, angel of the Lord, may 
be regarded as a kind of proper name, and we may translate the angel of the Lord, 
notwithstanding the absence of the article. But since, when once this personage is 
introduced, the word angel is preceded by the article (ver. 13), it is more natural to 
translate here an angel. The entrance to the temple facing the east, Zacharias, on 
entering, had on his right the table of shew-bread, placed on the north side ; on his 
left the candelabrum, placed on the south side ; and before him the golden altar, 
which occupied the end of the holy place, in front of the veil that hung between this 
part of the sanctuary and the Holy of Holies. The expression on the right side of the 
altar, must be explained according to the point of view of Zacharias : the angel stood, 
therefore, between the altar and the shewbread table. The fear of Zacharias pro- 
ceeds from the consciousness of sin, which is immediately awakened in the human 
mind when a supernatural manifestation puts it in direct contact with the divine 
world. The expression (j>6(3oc eneneaev is a Hebraism (Gen. 15 : 12). Was it morning 
or evening ? Meyer concludes, from the connection between the entrance of Zach- 
arias into the temple and the drawing of the lot (ver. 9), that it was morning. This 
proof is not very conclusive. Nevertheless, the supposition of Meyer is in itself the 
most probable. 

The message of the angel : vers. 13-17.* " But the angel said unto him, Fear not, 
Zacharias : for thy prayer is heard ; and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, 
and thou shalt call his name John. 14. And thou shalt have joy and gladness ; and 
many shall rejoice at his birth. 15. For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, 
and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink ; and he shall be filled with the Holy 
Ghost, even from his mother's womb. 16. And many of the children of Israel shall 
he turn to the Lord their God. 17. And he shall go before him in the spirit and 
power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient 
to the wisdom of the just ; to make read3 r a people prepared for the Lord." 

The angel begins by reassuring Zacharias (ver. 13) ; then he describes the person 
of the son of Zacharias (vers. 14, 15), and his mission (vers. 16, 17). 

In the 13th verse the angel tells Zacharias that he has not come on an errand of 
judgment, but of favor ; comp. Dan. 10 : 12. The prayer of Zacharias to which the 
angel alludes would be, in the opinion of many, an entreaty for the advent of the 
Messiah. This, it is said, is the only solicitude worthy of a priest in such a place 
and at such a time. But the preceding context (ver. 7) is in no way favorable to this 
explanation, nor is that which follows (ver. 13 b ) ; for the sense of the nai is most cer- 
tainly this : " And so thy wife Elizabeth . . ." Further, the two personal pro- 

* Ver. 14. Instead of yEwrjaei, which T. R. reads with G. X. r. and several Mun., 
all the others read yeveoei. Ver. 17. B. G. L. V. : TcpooetevaeTat, instead of 
npoelevaerat, the reading of T. R. with 15 Mjj., etc. 



48 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

nouns, gov and ool, " thy wife shall bear thee," as also the aoi, " thou shalt have (ver. 
14), prove positively the entirely personal character of the prayer and its answer. 
The objection that, according to ver. 7, he could no longer expect to have a child, 
and consequently could not pray with this design, exaggerates the meaning of this 
word. The phrase naheiv bvofia is a Hebraism ; it signifies, properly, to call any one 
by his name. The name 'ludwiji, John, is composed of nii"P an( ^ y i2T\ '• Jehovah shows 
grace. It is not the character of the preaching of this person which is expressed by 
this name ; it belongs to the entire epoch of which his appearance is the signal 

The 14th verse describes the joy which his birth will occasion ; it will extend be 
yond the narrow limits of the family circle, and be spread over a large part of the 
nation. There is an evident rising toward a climax in this part of the message : 1st, 
a son ; 2d, a son great before God ; 3d, the forerunner of the Messiah. 'AyaXliaoiS 
expresses the transports which a lively emotion of joy produces. The beginning of 
the fulfilment of this promise is related, vers. 64-66. The reading yeveoei is certainly 
preferable to yevvqoei, which is perhaps borrowed from the use of the verb yevvdv (ver. 
13). 

The ardor of this private and public joy is justified in the 15th verse by the 
eminent qualities which this child will possess (yap). The only greatness which can 
rejoice the heart of such a man as Zacharias is a greatness which the Lord himself 
recognizes as such : great before the Lord. This greatness is evidently that which 
results from personal holiness and the moral authority accompanying it. The two 
Kat following may be paraphrased by : and in fact. The child is ranked beforehand 
among that class of specially consecrated men, who may be called the heroes of the- 
ocratic religion, the Nazarites. The ordinance respecting the kind of life to be led 
by these men is found in Num. 6 :1-21. The vow of the Nazarite was either tem- 
porary or for life. The Old Testament offers us two examples of this second form : 
Samson (Judg. 13 : 5-7) and Samuel (1 Sam. 1 : 11). It was a kind of voluntary lay 
priesthood. By abstaining from all the comforts and conveniences of civilized life, 
such as wine, the bath, and cutting the hair, and in this way approaching the state of 
nature, the Nazarite" presented himself to the world as a man filled with a lofty 
thought, which absorbed all his interest, as the bearer of a word of God which was 
hidden in his heart (Lange). 2t/cepa denotes all kinds of fermented drink extracted 
from fruit, except that derived from the grape. In place of this means of sensual 
excitement, John will have a more healthful stimulant; the source of all pure exalta- 
tion, the Holy Spirit. The same contrast occurs in Eph. 5 : 18 : "Be not drunk 
with wine . . . but be filled with the Spirit." And in his case this state will 
begin from his mother's womb: In, even, is not put for ?/cS?/, already; this word 
signifies, while he is yet in his mother's womb. The fact related (vers. 41-44) is the 
beginning of the accomplishment of this promise, but it in no way exhausts its mean- 
ing- 

Vers. 16, 17. The mission of the child ; it is described (ver. 16) in a general and 

abstract way : he will bring back, turn ; this is the ^{^n of the Old Testament. This 
expression implies that the people are sunk in estrangement from God. The 17th 
verse specifies and develops this mission. The pronoun* avroS, lie, brings out prom- 
inently the person of John with a view to connect him with the person of the Lord, 
who is to follow him (avrov). The relation between these two personages thus set 
forth is expressed by the two prepositions, irpo, before (in the verb), and humov, under 
the eyes of; he who precedes walks under the eyes of him that comes after him. The 



COMMENT AKY O^ ST. LUKE. 49 

Alex, reading Tfpvffe?.svaeTni has no meaning. The pronoun avrov (before him) has 
been referred by some directly to the person of the Messiah. An attempt is made to 
justify this meaning, by saying that this personage is always present to the mind of 
the Israelite -when he says " he." But this meaning is evidently forced ; the pronoun 
him can only refer to the principal word of the preceding verse : the Lord their God. 
The prophec3 r . (Mai. 3 : 1), of which this passage is an exact reproduction, explains 
it : " Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me ; 
and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger 
of the covenant, whom ye delight in." According to these words, therefore, in the 
eyes of the prophet the Messiah is no other than Jehovah himself. For it is Jehovah 
who speaks in this prophec}'. It is He who causes Himself to be preceded in his 
appearance as the Messiah by a forerunner who receives (4:5) the name of Elijah, 
and who is to prepare His wa}\ It is He who, under the names of Adona'i (the Lord) 
and the angel of the covenant, comes to take possession of His temple. From the 
Old as well as the New Testament point of view, the coming of the Messiah is there- 
fore the supreme theophany. Apart from this way of regarding them, the words of 
Malachi and those of the angel in our 17th verse are inexplicable. See an avrov very 
similar to this in the strictly analogous passage, John 12 : 41 (comp. with Isa. 6). 

It appears from several passages in the Gospels that the people, with their learned 
men, expected, before the coming of the Messiah, a personal appearance of Elijah, 
or of some other prophet like him, probably both (John 1 : 21, 22 ; Matt. 16 : 14, 
17 : 10, 27 : 47). The angel spiritualizes this grossly literal hope : " Thy son 'shall 
be another Elijah. The Spirit designates the divine breath in general , and the term 
power, which is added to it, indicates the special character of the Spirit's influence 
in John, as formerly in Elijah. The preposition ev, in, makes the Holy Spirit the 
element into which the ministry of John is to strike its roots. 

The picture of the effect produced by this ministry is also borrowed from 
Malachi, who had said: "He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the 
children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite 
the earth with a curse." The LXX., and, after their example, many modern 
interpreters, have applied this description to the re-establishment of domestic 
peace in Israel. But nothing either in the ministry of Elijah or of John the Baptist 
had any special aim in this direction. Besides, such a result has no direct connection 
with the preparation for the work of the Messiah, and bears no proportion to the 
threat which follows in the prophetic word : " Lest I come and smite the earth with 
a curse." Lastly, the thought, "and the heart of the children to their fathers, " 
taken in this sense, could not have substituted for it in the discourse of the angel, 
"and the rebellious to the wisdom of the just," unless we suppose that in every 
Israelitish family the children are necessarily rebellious and their parents just. Some 
explain it thus : " He will bring back to God all together, both the hearts of the 
fathers and those of the children ;" but this does violence to the expression employed. 
Calvin and others give the word heart the sense of feeling : " He will bring back the 
pious feeling of the fathers [faithful to God] to the present generation [the disobedient 
children], and turn the latter to the wisdom of the former." But can " to turn their 
hearts toward" mean " to awaken dispositions in" ? For this sense eis would have 
been necessary instead of kni (reava) ; besides, we cannot give the verb emcTpeTpaL 
such a different sense from emoTpeif/et in ver. 16. The true sense of these words, it 
seems to me, may be gathered from other prophetic passages, such as these : Isa. 



50 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUlvE. 

29 : 22, " Jacob shall no more be ashamed, neither shall his face wax pale, when he 
seeth his children become the work of my hands." Lxiii. 16, "Doubtless Thou art 
our Father, though xlbraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not ; 
Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Kedeemer !" Abraham and Jacob in the place of 
their rest, had blushed at the sight of their guilty descendants, and turned away their 
faces from them ; but now they would turn again toward them with satisfaction in 
consequence of the change produced by the ministry of John. The words of Jesus 
(John 8 : 56), "Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad," 
proves that there is a reality underlying these poetic images. With this meaning the 
modification introduced into the second member of the phrase is easily explained. 
The children who will turn toward their fathers (Malachi), are the Jews of the time 
of the Messiah, the children of the obedient, who return to the wisdom of the pious 
patriarchs (Luke). Is not this modification made with a view to enlarge the applica- 
tion of this promise? The expression, the rebellious, may, in fact, comprehend not 
only the Jews, but also the heathen. The term aireiQeis, rebellious, is applied by Paul 
(Rom. 11) to both equally. bpovyotS ditcaiov, the wisdom of the just, denotes that 
healthy appreciation of things which is the privilege of upright hearts. The preposi- 
tion of rest, ev, is joined to a verb of motion, emaTpiipai, to express the fact that this 
wisdom is a state in which men remain when once they have entered it. It will be 
John's mission, then, to reconstitute the moral unity of the people by restoring the 
broken relation between the patriarchs and their descendants. The withered branches 
will be quickened into new life by sap proceeding from the trunk. This restoration 
of the unity of the elect people will be their true preparation for the comiug of the 
Messiah. Some interpreters have proposed to make uTreiQelg the object of kroLfiacat, 
and this last a second infinitive of purpose, parallel to eiriarpsipai : " And to prepare 
by the wisdom of the just, the rebellious, as a people made ready for the Lord." , It 
is thought that in this way a tautology is avoided between the two words ^roLfidaat, to 
prepare, and KareoKevaofievov, made ready, disposed. But these two terms have distinct 
meanings. The first bears on the relation of John to the people ; the second on the 
relation of the people to the Messiah. John prepares the people in such a way that 
they are disposed to receive the Messiah. Of course it is the ideal task of the fore- 
runner that is described here. In reality this plan will succeed only in so far as the 
people shall consent to surrender themselves to the divine action. Is it probable 
that after the ministry of Jesus, when the unbelief of the people was already an 
historical fact, a later writer would have thought of giving such an optimist coloring 
to the discourse of the angel ? 

2. Vers. 18-22 relate the manner in which the promise is received ; and first, 
the objection of Zacharias (ver. 18) ; next, his punishment (vers. 19, 20) ; lastly, the 
effect produced upon the people by this latter circumstance. 

Vers. 18-20. "And Zacharias said unto the angel, Whereby shall I know this? 
for 1 am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years. And the angel answering, 
said unto him, I am Gabriel that stand in the presence 'of God ; and am sent to speak 
unto thee, and to show thee these glad tidings. And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, 
and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because 
thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season." Abraham, 
Gideon, and Hezekiah had asked for signs (Gen. 15 ; Judg. 6 ; 2 Kings 20) without 
being blamed. God had of Himself granted one to Moses (Ex. 4), and offered one 
to Ahaz (Isa. 7). Why, if this was lawful in all these cases, was it not so in this ? 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 51 

There is a maxim of human law which says, Si duo faciunt idem, non est idem. There 
are different degrees of responsibility, either according to the degree of development 
of the individual or of the age, or according to the character of the divine manifesta- 
tion. God alone can determine these degrees. It appears from the 19th verse that 
the appearance of the being who spoke to Zacharias ought of itself to have been a 
sufficient sign. In any case this difference from the similar accounts in the Old Tes- 
tament proves that our narrative was not artificially drawn up in imitation of them. 
The sign requested is designated by the preposition Kara, according to, as the norm of 
knowledge. The yap, for, refers to this idea understood : I have need of such a sign. 
Yet Zacharias prayed for this very thing which now, when promised by God, appears 
impossible to him. It is an inconsistency, but one in keeping with the laws of our 
moral nature. The narrative, Acts 12, in which we see the church of Jerusalem 
praying for the deliverance of Peter, and refusing to believe it when granted, presents 
a similar case. 

In order to make Zacharias feel the seriousness of his fault, the angel (ver. 19) 
refers to two things : his dignity as a divine messenger, and the nature of his mes- 
sage. 'Eyw, I, coming first, brings his person into prominence. But he immediately 
adds, that stand in the presence of God, to show that it is not he who is offended, 
but God who has sent him. The name Gabriel is composed of 123 & Q d btf*,™ 7, ^ e ^> 
the mighty messenger of God. The Bible knows of only two heavenly personages 
who are invested with a name, Gabriel (Dan. 8 : 16, 9 : 21) and Michael (Dan. 10 : 13, 
21 ; 12 : 1 ; Jude 9 ; Rev. 12 : 7). This latter name (^K^D) signifies, who is like God? 
Here the critic asks sarcastically whether Hebrew is syjoken in heaven ? But these 
names are evidently symbolical ; they convey to us the character and functions of 
these personalities. When we speak to any one, it is naturally with a view to be 
understood. When heaven communicates with earth, it is obliged to borrow the 
language of earth. According to the name given him, Gabriel is the mighty servant 
of God employed to promote His work here below. It is in this capacity that he 
appears to Daniel, when he comes to announce to him the restoration of Jerusalem ; it 
is he also who promises Mary the birth of the Saviour. In all these circumstances he 
appears as the heavenly evangelist. The part of Gabriel is positive ; that of Michael 
is negative. Michael is, as his name indicates, the destroyer of every one who dares 
to equal, that is, to oppose God. Such is his mission in Daniel, where he contends 
against the powers hostile to Israel ; such also is it in Jude and in the Apocalypse, 
where he fights, as the champion of God, against Satan, the author of idolatry : 
Gabriel builds up, Michael overthrows. The former is the forerunner of Jehovah the 
Saviour, the latter of Jehovah the Judge. Do not these two heavenly personages 
remind us of the two angels who accompanied Jehovah (Gen. 18) when He came to 
announce to Abraham, on the one hand, the birth of Isaac, and, on the other, the 
destruction of Sodom ? Biblical angelology makes mention of no other persons 
belonging to the upper world. But this wise sobriety did not satisfy later Judaism ; 
it knew besides an angel Uriel, who gives good counsel, and an angel Raphael, who 
works bodily cures. The Persian angelology is richer still. It reckons no less than 
seven superior spirits or amschaspands. How, then, can it be maintained that the 
Jewish angelology is a Persian importation ? History does not advance from the 
complicated to the simple. Besides, the narrative, Gen. 18, in which the two 
archangels appear, is prior to the contact of Israel with the Persian religion. Lastly, 
the idea represented by these two personages is essentially Jewish. These two 



52 COMMEHTAEY OK ST. LUKE. 

notions, of a work of grace personified in Gabriel, and of a work of judgment per- 
sonified in Michael, have their roots in the depths of Jewish monotheism. The term 
to stand before God indicates a permanent function (Isa. 6:2). This messenger is one 
of the servants of God nearest His throne. This superior dignity necessarily rests on 
a higher degree of holiness. We may compare 1 Kings 17 : 1, where Elijah says, 
" The Lord before whom I stand." Jesus expresses Himself in a similar manner 
(Matt. 18) respecting the guardian angels of the litttle ones : " Their angels do always 
i behold the face of my Father which is in heaven." Such a being deserves to be 
taken at his word ; how much more when he is the bearer of a message which is to 
fulfil the desires of him to whom he is sent, and answer his earnest supplication (ver. 
19 b )! 

The chastisement inflicted on Zacharias (ver. 20) is at the same time to serve as a 
sign to him. 'Idov, behold, indicates the unexpected character of this dispensation. 
J>luitl£)v, not speaking, denotes simply the fact ; firj dwd/uevoS, not being able to speak, 
discloses its cause ; this silence will not be voluntary. Ofriveg, which, as such, that is 
to say, as being the words of such a being as I am. It may seem that with the future 
shall be fulfilled, the preposition ev is required, and not eli. But eis indicates that 
the performance of the promise will begin immediately in order to its completion at 
the appointed time ; comp. Rom. 6 : 22, eis dycaafxdv. KaipoS, their season, refers not 
only to the time (xpovos), but to the entire circumstances in which this fulfilment will 
take place. There is not a word in this speech of the angel which is not at once 
simple and worthy of the mouth into which it is put. It is not after this fashion that 
man makes heaven speak when he is inventing ; only read the apocryphal writings ! 

Vers. 21 and 22. According to the Talmud, the high priest did not remain long in 
the holy of holies on the great day of atonement. Much more would this be true of 
the priest officiating daily in the holy place. The analytical form yv Tcpoodonuv 
depicts the lengthened expectation and uneasiness which began to take possession of 
the people. The text indicates that the events which had just taken place was made 
known in two w T ays : on the one hand, by the silence of Zacharias ; on the other, by 
signs by which he himself (avros) indicated its cause. The analytical form yv diavevov 
denotes the frequent repetition of the same signs, and the imperfect diejuevev, he 
remained dumb, depicts the increasing surprise produced by his continuing in this 
state. 

3. The accomplishment of the promise : vers. 23-25. The subject of eyevero, it came 
to pass, is all that follows to the end of ver. 25. Comp. a similar eyevero, Acts 9 : 3. The 
active form nepteKpvfSev iavrjjv, literally, she kept herself concealed, expresses a more 
energetic action than that designated by the middle TvepLeupv^aro. Elizabeth isolated 
herself intentionally, rendering herself invisible to her neighbors. Her conduct has 
been explained in many ways. Origen and Ambrose thought' that it was the result 
of a kind of false modesty. Paulus supposed that Elizabeth wished to obtain assur- 
ance of the reality of her happiness before speaking about it. According to De 
Wette, this retreat was nothing more than a precaution for her health. It was dictated, 
according to Bleek and Oosterzee, by a desire for meditation and by sentiments of 
humble gratitude. Of all these explanations, the last certainly appears the best. But 
it in no way accounts for the term for five months, so particularly mentioned. 
Further, how from this point of view are we to explain the singular expression, Thus 
hath the Lord dealt with me ? The full meaning of this word thus is necessarily 
weakened by applying it in a general way to the greatness of the blessing conferred 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 53 

on Elizabeth, while this expression naturally establishes a connection between the 
practice she pursues toward herself from this time, and God's method of dealing with 
her. What is this connection ? Does she not mean, " I will treat myself as God has 
treated my reproach. He has taken it away from me; I will therefore withdraw 
myself from the sight of men, so long as 1 run any risk of still bearing it, when I am 
in reality delivered from it ?" Restored by God, she feels that she owes it to heiself, 
as well as to Him who has honored her in this way, to expose herself no more to the 
scornful regards of men until she can appear before them evidently honored by the 
proofs of the divine favor. In this way the term five months, which she fixes for 
her seclusion, becomes perfectly intelligible, For it is after the fifth month that the 
condition of a pregnant woman becomes appaient. Therefore it is not until then 
that she can appear again in society, as what she really is, restored, In this conduct 
and declaration there is a mixture of womanly pride and humble gratitude which 
makes them a very exquisite expression of maternal feeling for one in such a posi- 
tion. We should like to know what later narrator would have invented such a deli- 
cate touch as this. But the authenticity of this single detail implies the authenticity 
of the whole of the preceding narrative.* "Ore must be taken here in the sense of 
because ; Elizabeth wants to justify whatever is unusual in the course of conduct she 
has just adopted. 'Eneldev cKpeheiv, " He has regarded me in a manner that takes 
away ;" he has cast on me one of those efficacious looks which, as the Psalmist says, 
are deliverance itself. On barrenness as a reproach, comp. Gen. 30 : 23, where, after 
the birth of her first-born, Rachel cries, " God has taken away my reproach." 

This saying of Elizabeth's discloses all the humiliations which the pious Israelite 
had endured from her neighbors during these long years of barrenness. This also 
comes out indirectly from ver. 36, in which the angel makes use of the expression, 
'• Her who was called barren." This epithet had become a kind of sobriquet for her 
in the mouth of the people of the place. 

SECOND NARRATIVE. — CHAP. 1 : 26-38, 

Announcement of the Birth of Jesus. 

The birth of John the Baptist, like that of Isaac, was due to a higher power ; but 
it did not certainly transcend the limits of the natural order. It is otherwise with the 
birth of Jesus ; it has the character of a creative act. In importance it constitutes 
the counterpart, not of the birth of Isaac, but of the appearance of the first man ; 
Jesus is the second Adam. This birth is the beginning of the world to come. If 
this character of the appearance of Jesus be denied, the whole o*f the subsequent nar- 
rative remains unintelligible and inadmissible. Directly it is conceded, all the rest 
accords with it. 

But the creative character of this birth does not destroy the connection between the 
old and the new era. We have just seen how, in the birth of the greatest representa- 
tive of the old covenant, God remained faithful to the theocratic past, by making the 
Israelitish priesthood the cradle of this child. He acts in the same way when the 

* For this beautiful explanation I am indebted to the friend to whom I have had 
the joy of dedicating my commentary on the Gospel of John, and with w T hom I hare 
more than once read the Gospel of Luke, Professor Charles Prince, who now beholds 
face to face Him whom we have so often contemplated together in the mirror of His 
word. Generally speaking, this commentary is as much his as mine. 



54: COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

Head of renewed humanity, the Lord of the world to come, is to make His appear- 
ance ; He causes Him to come forth as a scion from the stock of the ancient royalty 
of Israel. Further, God has respect in this work "to the conditions of the human 
past generally, While creating in Him a new humanity, He is careful to preserve 
the link which unites Him to the ancient humanity. Just as in the first creation He 
did not create man's body out of nothing, but formed it out of the dust of the already 
existing earth, of which Adam was to become the lord ; so, at the appearance of the 
second Adam, He did not properly create His body ; He took it from the womb of a 
human mother, so as to maintain the organic connection which must exist between 
the Head of the new humanity and that natural humanity which it is His mission to 
raise to the height of His own stature. 

This narrative records : 1. The appearance of the angel (vers. 26-29) ; 2. His 
message (vers. 30-33) ; 3. The manner in which his message is received (ver. 34-38). 

1. The appearance of the angel: vers. 26-29.* From the temple the narrative 
transports us to the bouse of a young Israelitish woman. We leave the sphere of 
official station to enter into the seclusion of private life. Mary probably was in 
prayer. Her chamber is a sanctuary ; such, henceforth, will be the true temple. The 
date, the sixth month, refers to that given in ver. 24. It was the time when Eliza- 
beth had just left her retirement ; all that takes place in the visitation of Mary is in 
connection with this circumstance. The government vivo tcv Qeov, by God, or, as sjme 
Alex, read, and rov Oeov, on the part of God, indicates a difference between this mes- 
sage and that in ver. 19. God interposes more directly ; it is a question here of His 
own Son. The received reading vno, by, seems to me for this reason more in accord- 
ance with the spirit of the context than the Alex, reading, which lays less emphasis 
on the divine origin of the message. 

The most usual form of the name of the town in the documents is Nazareth : it is 
admitted here by Tischendorf in his eighth edition. He accords, however, some 
probability to the form Nazara, which is the reading of 4 : 16 in the principal Alex- 
andrians. In Matt. 3 : 23, the mss. only vary between Nazareth and Nazaret. Keim, 
in his " History of Jesus," has decided for Nazara. He gives his reasons, i. p. 319 
et seq. : 1. The derived adjectives NafapaloS, JSaCapqvos are most readily explained 
from this form. 2. The form Nazareth could easily come from Nazara, as Ramath 
from Rana (by the addition of the Aramean article). The forms Nazareth and Naza- 
ret may also be explained as forms derived from that. 3. The phrase and Na&puv, 
in Eusebius, supposes the nominative Nazara. 4. It is the form preserved in the 
existing Arabic name en-Nezirah. Still it would be possible, even though the true 
name was Nazara, that Luke might have been accustomed to lise the form Nazareth ; 
Tischendorf thinks that this may be inferred from Acts 10 : 38, where I*. B. C. D. E. 
read Nazareth. The etymology of this name is probably ~}£G (whence the feminine 

* Ver. 26. '1*. B. L. W e . and some Mnn. , ano instead of vivo, which is the read- 
ing of T. R. with 16 Mjj. and almost all the Mnn. The mss, vary here between 
NafrpeQ (C. E. G. H. M. S. IT. V. I\ A. ltP le »i» e ; in addition, &. at 2 : 4, and B. at 
2 :39, 51), NafrpaQ (A. A.), and Nafrper (K. L. X. II and Z. at 2 : 4) ; further, &. B. Z. 
read Na&pa at 4 : 16. Ver. 27. &, B. F w . L. and 32 Mnn. add after olkov, icai narpiac 
(taken from 2 : 4). Ver. 28. & B. L. W c . and some Mnn. omit the words evloyijfxevTi 
av ev ywat^iv, which is the reading of T. R. with 16 Mjj., almost all the Mnn., Syr. 
It. Vulg. Ver. 29. &. B. D. L. X. and some Mnn. omit idovaa, which T. R. reads 
after n 6e along with 15 Mjj., the other Mnn,, Syr. It, & B. D. L. X. and some Mnn. 
omit avrov after 2,oyu. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 5o 

form I"HHJ)> a s ^ oot or scion ; this is the form used in the Talmud. The Fathers 
accordingly perceived in this name an allusion to the scion of David in the prophets. 
Burckhardt the traveller explains it more simply by the numerous shrubs which 
clothe the ground. Hitzig has proposed another etymology ; niSIJ. ^ e guardian, the 
name referring either to some pagan divinity, the protectress of the locality, as this 
scholar thinks, or, as Keim supposes, to the town itself, on account of its command- 
ing the defile of the valley. 

Nazareth, with a population at the present day of 3000 inhabitants, is about three 
days' journey north of Jerusalem, and about eight leagues west of Tiberias. It is 
only a short distance from Tabor. It is reached from the valley of Jezreel through a 
mountain gorge running from S. to N. f and opening out into a pleasant basin of some 
twenty minutes in length by ten in width. A chain of hills shuts in the valley on its 
northern side. Nazareth occupies its lower slopes, and rises in smiling terraces 
above the valley. From the summit of the ridge which incloses this basin on the 
north there is a splendid view.* This valley was in Israel just what Israel was in 
the midst of the earth— a place at once secluded and open, a solitary retreat and a 
high post of observation, inviting meditation and at the same time affording oppor- 
tunity for far-reaching views in all directions, consequently admirably adapted for 
an education of which God reserved to Himself the initiative, and which man could 
not touch without spoiling it. The explanation, a town of Galilee, is evidently in- 
tended for Gentile readers ; it is added by the translator to the Jewish document that 
lay before him.. 

Do the words, of the house of David, ver. 27, refer to Joseph or Mary ? Gram- 
matically, it appeals to us that the form of the following sentence rather favors the 
former alternative. For if this clause applied, in Hie writer's mind, to Mary, he 
would have continued his nairative in this form: "and her name was . . ." 
rather than in this : " and the young girl's name was . . ." But does it follow 
from this that Mary was not, in Luke's opinion, a descendant of David ? By no 
means. Vers. 32 and 69 have no sense unless the author regarded Mary herself as 
a daughter of this king. See 3 : 23. 

The term x a P LT0 ^> v Tiva, to make any one the object of one's favor, is applied to 
believers in general (Eph. 1 : 6). There is no thought here of outward graces, as the 
translation/^ of grace would imply. The angel, having designated Mary by this 
expression as the special object of divine favor, justifies this address by the words 
which follow : The Lord vrith thee. Supply is, and not be; it is not a wish. The 
heavenly visitant speaks as one knowing how matters stood. The words, " Blessed 
art thou among women," are not genuine ; they are taken from ver. 42, where they 
are not wanting in any document. 

The impression made on Mary, ver. 29, is not that of fear ; it is a troubled feeling, 
very natural in a young girl who is suddenly made aware of the unexpected presence 
of a strange person. The T. R. indicates two causes of trouble : " And when she saw 
him, she was troubled at his saying." By the omission of idovca, when slie saw, the 
Alexs. leave only one remaining. But this very simplification casts suspicion on 
their reading. The two ancient Syriac and Latin translations here agree with the T. 
R. The meaning is, that trouble was joined to the surprise caused by the sight of the 
angel, as soon as his words had confirmed the reality of his presence. Tlorairfc 

* See Keim's fine description, " Gesch. Jesu," t. i. p. 321. 



56 COMMENTARY Otf ST. LUKE. 

denotes properly the origin {nov rb and). But this term applies also to the contents 
anil value, as is the case here. What was the meaning, the import of . . . Having 
thus prepaied Mary, the angel proceeds with the message he has brought. 

2. The message of the angel : vers. 30-33.* " And the angel said unto her, Fear 
not, Mary ; for thou hast found favor with God. 81. And, behold, thou shalt con- 
ceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call His name Jesus. 32. He 
shall be gieat, and shall be called the Son of the Highest ; and the Lord God shall give 
unto Him the throne of His father David : 33. And He shall reign over the house of 
Jacob for ever ; and of His kingdom there shall be no end." By long continuance, 
Mary's trouble would have degenerated into fear. The angel prevents this painful 
impression r " Fear not. " The term evpe s x^P LV i th°u hast found favor, reproduces 
the idea of Kexapirufievrj ; this expression belongs to the Greek of theLXX. The angel 
proceeds to (numerate the striking proofs of this assertion, the marks of divine favor : 
1st, a son ; 2d, His name, a sign of blessing ; 3d, His personal superiority ; 4th, His 
divine title ; lastly, His future and eternal sovereignty. 'Idav, behold, expresses the 
unexpected character of the fact announced. 'iTjcoi^, Jesus, is the Greek form of 
yW^> Jeschovah, which was gradually substituted for the older and fuller form ynyifP* 
Jehoschovah, of which the meaning is, Jehovah saves. The same command is given 
by the angel to Joseph, Matt. 1 : 21, with this comment: "For He shall save His 
people from their sins." Criticism sees here the proof of two different and contra- 
dictory traditions. But if the reality of these two divine messages is admitted, there 
is nothing surprising in their agreement on this point. As to the two traditions, we 
ieave them until we come to the general considerations at the end of chap. 2. The 
personal quality of this son : He shall be great — first of all, in holiness ; this is true 
greatness in the judgment of Heaven ; then, and as a consequence, in power and 
iufluence, His title : Son of the Highest. This title corresponds with His real nature. 
For the expression, He slmll be called, signifies here, universally recognized as such, 
and that because He is such in fact. This title has been regarded as a simple synonym 
for that of Messiah. But the passages cited in proof, Matt. 26 : 63 and John 1 : 50, 
prove precisely the contrary : the first, because had the title Son of God signified 
nothing more in the view*of the Sanhedrim than that of Messiah, there would have 
been no blasphemy in assuming it, even falsely ; the second, because it would be idle 
to put two titles together between which there was no difference. f On the other 
hand, the Tiinitarian sense should not be here applied to the term Son of God. The 
notion of the pre-existence of Jesus Christ, as the eternal Son of God, is quite foreign 
to the context. Mary could not have comprehended it ; and on the supposition that 
she had comprehended or even caught a glimpse of it, so far from being sustained by 
it in her work as a mother, she would have been rendered incapable of performing rt. 
The notion here expressed by the title Son of God is solely that of a personal and 
mysterious relation between this child and the Divine Being. The angel explains 
more clearly the meaning of this term in ver. 35. Lastly, the dignity and mission of 
this child : He is to fulfil the office of Messiah. The expressions are borrowed from 
the prophetic descriptions, 2 Sam. 7 : 12, 13 ; Isa. 9 : 5-7. The throne of David 
should not be taken here as the emblem of the throne of God, nor the house of Jacob 

* Ver. 30. D. alone reads fiapia instead of iiapm/j, ; so at vers. 39, 56, and (with 
C, at vers. 34, 38, 46, 2 : 19, the mss. are divided between these two readings. 

f See my " Conferences apologetiques," 6th conference: the divinity of Jesus 
Christ, pp. 15-18. 



COMMENTARY ON" ST. LUKE. 57 

as a figurative designation of the Church. These expressions in the mouth of the 
angel keep their natural and literal sense. It is, indeed, the theocratic royalty and 
the Israelitish people, neither more nor less, that are in question here ; Mary could 
have understood these expressions in no other way. It is true that, for the promise to 
be realized in this sense, Israel must have consented to welcome Jesus as their Messiah. 
In that case, the transformed theocracy would have opened its bosom to the 
heathen ; and the empire of Israel would have assumed, by the very fact of this 
incorporation, the character of a universal monarchy. The unbelief of Israel foiled 
this plan, and subverted the regular course of history ; so that at the present day the 
fulfilment of these promises is still postponed to the future. But is it likely, after the 
failure of the ministry of Jesus among this people, that about the beginning of the 
second century, when the fall of Jerusalem had already taken place, any writer 
would have made an angel prophesy what is expressed here ? This picture of the 
Messianic work could have been produced at no other epoch than that to which this 
narrative refers it — at the transition period between the old and new covenants. 
Besides, would it have been possible, at any later period, to reproduce, with such 
artless simplicity and freshness, the hopes of these early days ? 

3.' The manner in which the message was received : vers. 34-38.* "34. Then 
said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man ? 35. And the 
angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the 
power of the Highest shall overshadow thee ; therefore also that holy thing which 
shall be born of thee shall be called the Son. of God. 36. And, behold, thy cousin 
Elizabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age ; and this is the sixth month 
with her,* who was called barren. 37. For with God nothing shall be impossible. 
38. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord ; be it unto me according to 
thy word. And the angel departed from her." Mary's question does not express 
doubt : it simply asks for an explanation, and this very request implies faith. Her 
question is the legitimate expression of the astonishment of a pure conscience. We 
observe in the angel's reply the parallelism which among the Hebrews is always the 
expression of exalted feeling and the mark of the poetic style. The angel touches 
upon the most sacred of mysteries, and his speech becomes a song. Are the terms 
come upon, overshadow, borrowed, as Bleek thinks, from the image of a bird cover- 
ing her eggs or brooding over her young ? Comp. Gen. 1:8. It appears to us rather 
that these expressions allude to the cloud which covered the camp of the Israelites in 
the desert. In 9 : 34, as here, the evangelist describes the approach of this mysteri- 
ous cloud by the term kinaKid^Eiv. The Holy Ghost denotes here the divine power, 
the life-giving breath which calls into developed existence the germ of a human per- 
sonality slumbering in Mary's womb. This germ is the link which unites Jesus to 
human nature, and makes Him a member of the race He comes to save. Thus in 
this birth the miracle of the first creation is repeated on a scale of greater power. 
Two elements concurred in the formation of man : a* body taken from the ground, 
and the divine breath. With these two elements correspond here the germ derived 
from the womb of Mary, and the Holy Ghost who fertilizes it. The absolute purity 

* Ver. 34. Some Mjj. Mnn. Vss. and Fathers add fiot to earai. Ver. 35. C. several 
Mnn. It. add etc gov after yewufievov. Ver. 36. Instead of ovyyevqc, 9 Mjj. several 
Mnn. read ovyyevis. Instead of avvei7it]<j>via, the reading of T. R. with 16 Mjj., the 
Mnn. Syr., &. B. L. Z., cvveil^tv. Ver. 37. Instead of napa tu Geo, &. B. L. Z, 
irapa tov Geov. 



58 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

of this birth results on the one hand, from the perfect holiness of the divine principle 
which is its efficient cause ; on the other, from the absence of every impure motion 
in her who becomes a mother under the power of such a principle. 

By the word also (" therefore also") the angel alludes to his preceding words : 
He shall be called the Son of the Highest. We might paraphrase it : "And it is 
precisely for this reason that 1 said to thee, that . . . " We have then here, from 
the mouth of the angel himself, an authentic explanation of the term " Son of God" 
in the former part of his message. After this explanation, Mary could only under- 
stand the title in this sense : a human being of whose existence God Himself is the 
immediate author. It does not convey the idea of pre-existence, but it implies more 
than the term Messiah, which only refers to His mission. The word v^iarov, of the 
Highest, also refers to the term vlbs viplorov, Son of the Highest, ver. 32, and explains it. 
Bleek, following the Peschilo, Tertullian, etc., makes ayiov the predicate of Kl^'rictrai, 
and vidi Qeov in apposition with ayiov : " Wherefore that which shall be born of thee 
shall be called holy, Son of God." But with the predicate holy, the verb should have 
been, not " shall be called," but shall be. For holy is not a title. Besides, the con- 
nection with ver. 32 will not allow any other predicate to be given to shall be called 
the Son of God. The subject of the phrase is therefore the complex term to yewu/uevov 
ayiov, the holy thing conceived in thee, and more especially ayiov, the holy ; this adjec • 
tive is taken as a substantive. As the adjective of yevvufievov, taken substantively, it 
would of necessity be preceded by the article. The words m aov are a gloss. What 
is the connection between this miraculous birth of Jesus and His perfect holiness? 
The latter does not necessarily result from the former. For holiness is a fact of vo- 
lition, not of nature. How could we assign any serious meaning to the m6ral strug- 
gles in the history of Jesus — the temptation, for example — if His perfect holiness was 
the necessary consequence of His miraculous birth ? But it is not so. The miraculous 
birth was only the negative condition of the spotless holiness of Jesus. Entering into 
human life in this way, He was placed in the normal condition of man before his fall, 
and put in a position to fulfil the career originally set before man, in which he was to 
advance from innocence to holiness. He was simply freed from the obstacle 
which, owing to the way in which we are born, hinders us from accomplishing this 
task, but in order to change this possibility into a reality, Jesus had to exert every 
instant His own free will, and to devote Himself continually to the service of good 
and the fulfilment of the task assigned Him, namely, " the keeping of His Father's 
commandment." His miraculous birth, therefore, in no way prevented this conflict 
from being real. It gave Him liberty not to sin, but did not take away from Him the 
liberty of sinning. 

Mary did not ask for a sign ; the angel gives her one of his own accord. This sign, 
it is clear, is in close connection with the promise just made to her. When she 
beholds in Elizabeth the realization of this promised sign, her faith will be thoroughly 
confirmed. 'Idov, behold, expresses its unexpectedness. Kal before avrrj, she also, 
brings out the analogy between the two facts thus brought together. Mary's being 
related to Elizabeth in no way proves, as Schleiermacher thought, that Mary did not 
belong to the tribe of Judah. There was no law to oblige an Israelitish maiden to 
marry into her own tribe ; * Mary's father, even if he was of the tribe of Judah, might 
therefore have espoused a woman of the tribe of Levi. Could it be from this passage 

* Unless when land was possessed, and she desired to retain it. See Numb. 
3G : 6-8.— J. H, 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 59 

that Keim derives his assertion, that the priestly origin of Mary is indicated in Luke 
(i. 334 ; ? The dative yr/pa in the T. R. is only found in some mss. All the other 
documents have yi/pei, from the form yvpoS. 

In ver. 37 the angel refers the two events thus announced to to the common cause 
which explains them both — the boundless omnipotence of God. That is the rock of 
faith. 'AchvciTEiv signifies, properly, to be powerless. And Meyer maintains that this 
must be ils meaning here, and that ^fia is to be taken in its proper sense of ivord. 
In that case we should have to give the preference to the Alex, reading rov Qeov : 
" No word proceeding from God shall remain powerless." But this meaning is far- 
fetched. Jlapd rov Qeov cannot depend naturally either on fiw a or ddwar^ost. Matt. 
17 : 20 proves that the verb ddwarelv also signifies, in the Hellenistic dialect, to be 
impossible. The sense therefore is, "Nothing shall be impossible." Uapd t£> Beti, 
with God, indicates the sphere in which alone this word is true. As though the 
angel said, The impossible is not divine. 'Pf^ua, as "Q"|, a thing, in so far as announced. 
In reference to this concise vigorous expression of biblical supernaturalism, Ooslerzee 
says : " The laws of nature are not chains which the Divine Legislator has laid upon 
Himself ; they are threads which He holds in His hand, and which He shortens or 
lengthens at will." 

God's message by the mouth of the angel was not a command. The part Mary 
had to fulfil made no demands on her. It only remained, therefore, for Mary to con- 
sent to the consequences of the divine offer. She gives this consent in a word at once 
simple and sublime, which involved the most extraordinary act of faith that a woman 
ever consented to accomplish. Mary accepts the sacrifice of that which is dearer to a 
young maiden than her very life, and thereby becomes pre-eminently the heroine of 
Israel, the ideal daughter of Zion, the perfect type of human receptivity in regard to 
the divine work. We see here what exquisite fruits the lengthened work of the Holy 
Spirit under the old covenant had produced in true Israelites. The word iSov, behold, 
dues not here express surprise, but rather the offer of her entire being. Just as 
Abraham, when he answers God with, " Behold, here I am" (Gen. 22, Behold, 1), 
Mary places herself at God's disposal. The evangelist shows his tact in the choice of 
the aorist yevoiro. The present would have signified, " Let it happen to me this very 
instant !" The aorist leaves the choice of the time to God. 

What exquisite delicacy this scene displays ! "W hat simplicity and majesty 
in the dialogue ! Not one word too many, not one too few. A narrative 
so perfect could only have emanated from the holy sphere within which the 
mystery was accomplished. A later origin would inevitably have betrayed itself by 
s6me foreign element. Here the Protevangelium of James, which dales from the first 
part of the second century : " Fear not, said the angel to Mary ; for thou hast found 
grace before the Master of all things, and thou shalt conceive by His word. Having 
heard that, she doubted and said within herself : Shall I conceive of the Lord, of the 
living God, and shall I give birth as every woman gives birth ? And the angel of the 
Lord said to her, No, not thus, Mary, for the power of God . . ."etc. 

THIRD NARRATIVE.— CHAP. 1 : 39-56. 

I 

Mary's Visit to Elizabeth. 

This narrative is, as it were, the synthesis of the two preceding. These two 
divinely favored women meet and pour forth their hearts. 



60 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

1. Arrival of Mary (vers. 39-41) ; 2. Elizabeth's salutation (vers. 42-45) ; 3. Song 
of Mary (vers. 46-55). Ver. 56 forms the historical conclusion. 

1. The arrival of Mary ; vers. 39-41.* The terms arose and with haste express a 
lively eagerness. This visit met what was in fact a deep need of Mary's soul. Since 
the message of the angel, Elizabeth had become for her what a mother is for her 
daughter in the most important moment of her life. The words in those days com- 
prise the time necessary for making preparations for the journey. The distance to be 
traversed being four days' journey, Mary could not travel so far alone. The word 7 
6p«i>7, the hill country, has sometimes received quite a special meaning, making it a 
kind of proper name, by which in popular language the mountainous p ateau to the 
south of Jerusalem was designated ; but no instance of a similar designation can be 
given either from the Old or the New Testament. It appears to me that in this 
expression, " a city of Juda in the mountain," it is in no way necessary to give the 
term mountain the force of a proper name. The context makes it sufficiently clear 
that it is the mountain of Juda, in distinction from the plain of Juda, that is meant. 
Comp. Josh. 15 : 48, w T here v opeivi? is employed precisely in this way by the LXX. 
According to Josh. 15 : 55, 21 : 16, there was in this country, to the south of 
Hebron, a city of the name of Jutha or Juttha ; and according to the second passage 
(comp. ver. 13), this city was a priestly city.f From this several writers (Reland, 
Winer, Renan) have concluded that the text of our Gospel has undergone an altera- 
tion, and that the word Juda is a corruption of Jutha. But no ms. supports this 
conjecture ; and there is nothing in the context to require it. On the contrary, it is 
probable that, had Luke desired to indicate by name the city in which the parents of 
Jonn the Baptist lived, he would have done it sooner. The most important priestly 
city of this country was Hebron, two leagues south of Bethlehem. And although, 
subsequent to the exile, the priests no longer made it a rule to reside exclusively in 
the towns that had been assigned to them at the beginning, it is very natural to look 
for the home of Zacharias at Hebron, the more so that rabbinical tradition in the 
Talmud gives express testimony in favor of this opinion.]: Keim finds further support 
for it on this ground, that in the context tzoIls 'lovda can only signify the city of 
Juda, that is to say, the principal priestly city in Juda. But wrongly ; the simplest 
and most natural translation is : a city of Juda. 

The detail, she entered into the house, serves to put the reader in sympathy with the 
emotion of Mary at the moment of her arrival. With her first glance at Elizabeth 
she recognizes the truth of the sign that had been given her by the angel, and at this 
sight the promise she had herself received acquires a startling reality. Often a very 
little thing suffices to make a divine thought, which had previously only been con- 
ceived as an idea, take distinct form and life within us. And the expression we have 
used is perhaps, in this case, more than a simple metaphor. It is not surprising that 
the intense feeling produced in Mary by the sight of Elizabeth should have reacted 
immediately on the latter. The unexpected arrival of this young maiden at such a 
solemn moment for herself, the connection which she instantly divines between the 
miraculous blessing of which she had just been the object and this extraordinary visit, 
the affecting tones of the voice and holy elevation of this person, producing all the 

* Ver. 40, &and some Mnn., add ev ayaTAtacEi after fSpecpoi (taken from ver. 44). 
f According to Robinson, it is at the present day a village named Jutta. The 
name in the LXX. is Ita. 

\ Othon, " Lexicon rabbinicum," p. 324. 






COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 61 

impression of some celestial apparition, naturally predisposed her to receive the illu- 
mination of the Spirit. The emotion which possesses her is communicated to the 
child whose life is as yet one with her own ; and at the sudden leaping of this being, 
who she knows is compassed about by special blessing, the veil is rent. The Holy 
Spirit, the prophetic Spirit of the old covenant, seizes her, and she salutes Mary as 
the mother of the Messiah. 

2. The salutation of Elizabeth : vers. 42-45.* " And she spake out with a loud 
voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy 
womb. 43. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to 
me ? 44 For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe 
leaped in my womb for joy. 45 And blessed is she that believed : for there shall be a 
performance of those things which were told her from the Lord." The course of 
Elizabeth's thought is this : first of all, Mary and the son of Mary (ver.42) ; next Eliza- 
beth herself and^Her son (vers. 43, 44) ; lastly, Mary and her happiness. The char- 
acteristic of all true action of the Holy Spirit is the annihilation of the proper individ- 
uality of the person who is the instrument of it, and the elevation of his personal feel- 
ings to the height of the divine word. This is precisely the character of Elizabeth's 
salutation ; we shall find it the same in the song of Zacharias. Thus the truth of this 
word, " Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost," is justified by this very fact. The 
reading of some Alexandrians, aveporjosv, would indicate a cr3 r , instead of a simple 
breaking forth into speech. The reading Kpavyy of three other Alex, would have the 
same meaning. They both savor of exaggeration. In any case both could not be ad- 
mitted together. We may translate, "Blessed art thou," or "Blessed be thou." 
The former translation is best ; for exclamation is more in place here than a wish. 
The superlative form, blessed among, is not unknown to classical Greek. The ex- 
pression, " the fruit of thy womb," appears to imply the tact of the incarnation was 
already accomplished ; so also does the expression, " the mother of my Lord" (ver. 43). 
*Iva, in order that (ver. 43), may keep its ordinary meaning : " What have I done in 
order that this blessing might come to me ?" This iva is used from the standpoint of 
the divine intention. From Mary and her Son, her thought glances to herself and 
her own child. In calling Mary " the mother of my Lord," she declares herself .the 
servant of the Messiah, and consequently of His mother also. Everything of a sub- 
lime character springs from a deeper source than the understanding. The leaping of 
John, a prelude of the work of his life, belongs to the unfathomable depths of instinc- 
tive life. Elizabeth sees in it a sign of the truth of the presentiment she felt as soon 
as she saw Mary. 

At ver. 45 she reverts to Mary. The expression blessed is doubtless inspired 
by the contemplation of the calm happiness that irradiates the figure of the young 
mother. "On cannot be taken here in the sense of because ; for the word irLcrevaaaa, 
she that believed, in order that it may have its full force, must not gov6rn anything. 
'* Blessed is she that, at the critical moment, could exercise faith (the aorist) !" De 
Wette, Bleek, Meyer, think that the proposition which follows should depend on 
niarevnaaa: " she who believed that the things . . . would have their accomplish- 
ment." The two former, because aol would be necessary in place of ab-y ; the third, 

* Ver. 42 &. C. F. several Mnn., read aveQovcev, instead of aveduvrjaev, which is the 
reading of T. R. with all the rest. B. L. Z. and Origen (three times read upavyn in 
place of <puv7}. 



62 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

because all that had been promised, to Mary was already accomplished. But Eliza- 
beth's thought loses itself in a kind of meditation, and her words, ceasing to be an 
apostrophe to Mary, become a hymn of faith. This accounts for the use of a pro- 
noun of the third person. As to Meyer, he forgets that the accomplishment is only 
just begun, and is far from being completed. The glorification of the Messiah and of 
Israel still remains to be accomplished. Te2.eiuotS denotes this complete accomplish- 
ment. But how could Elizabeth speak of the kind of things which had been prom- 
ised to Mary ? What had passed between the angel and Zacharias had enlightened 
her respecting the similar things that must have taken place between Heaven and 
Mary. 

3. The song of Mary : vers. 46-56. Elizabeth's salutation was tull of excitement 
(she spake out with a loud voice), but Mary's hymn breathes a sentiment of deep 
inward repose. The greater happiness is, the calmer it is. So Luke says simply, 
sine, she said. A majesty truly regal reigns throughout this canticle., Mary describes 
first her actual impressions (vers. 46-48a) ; thence she rises to the divine fact which is 
the cause of them (vers. 485-50) ; she next contemplates the development of the his- 
torical consequences contained in it (vers. 51-53) ; lastly, she celebrates the moral 
necessity of this fact as the accomplishment of God's ancient promises to His people 
(vers. 54 and 55). The tone of the first strophe has a sweet and calm solemnity. It 
becomes more animated in the second, in which Mary contemplates the work of the 
Most High. It attains its full height and energy in the third, as Mary contemplates 
the immense revolution of which this work is the beginning and cause. Her song 
drops down and returns to its nest in the fourth, which is, as it were, the amen of the 
canticle. This hymn is closely allied to that of the mother of Samuel (1 Sam. 2), and 
contains several sentences taken from the book of Psalms. Is it, as some have main- 
tained, destitute of all originality on this account ? By no means. There is a very 
marked difference between Hannah's song of triumph and Mary's. While Mary cele- 
brates her happiness with deep humility and holy restraint, Hannah surrenders herself 
completely to the feeling of personal triumph ; with her very first words she breaks 
forth into cries of indignation against her enemies. As to the borrowed biblical 
phrases, Mary gives to these consecrated words an entirely new meaning and a higher 
application. The prophets frequently deal in this way with the words of their pred- 
ecessors. By this means these organs of the Spirit exhibit the continuity and prog- 
ress of the divine work. Criticism asks whether Mary turned over the leaves of 
her Bible before she spoke. It forgets that every young Israelite knew by heart from 
childhood the songs of Hannah, Deborah, and David ; that they sang them as they 
went up to the feasts at Jerusalem ; and that the singing of psalms was the daily 
accompaniment of the morning and evening sacrifice, as well as one of the essential 
observances of the passover meal. 

Vers. 46-55.* " And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord. 47. And my 

* Ver. 46. Three mss. of the Italic, a. b. 1., read Elizabeth instead of Mary. 
Ireneeus, at least in the Latin translation, follows this reading ; and Origen (Latin 
translation) speaks of mss'. in which it was found. Ver. 49. &. B. D. L. read fieyala 
instead of peyateia, the reading of T. R. with 22 Mjj. and all theMnn. Ver. 50. B. C. 
L. Z. read «S yeveaS ml yeveaS ; &. F. M. O. and several Mnn., ei$ yeveac nai yeveav, 
in place of ecS yeveaS yeveuv, which is the reading of 12 Mjj. and most of the Mnn. 
Ver. 51. & ca E. F. H. O. O c . and some Mnn. read SiavoiaS instead of Siavota. Ver. 
55. C. F. M. O. S. 60 Mnn. read euS aiuvoS instead of eiS rov aiuva. Ver. 56. I*. B. 
L. Z. read ws instead of uaei. D. ltP ,er ^ ue , Or., omit it 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 63 

spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. 48a. For he hath regarded the low estate of 
his handmaiden. 

" 48b. For, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. 49. For 
he that is mighty hath done to me great things ; and holy is his name. 50. And his 
mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation. 

" 51. He hath showed strength with his arm ; he hath scattered the proud in the 
imagination of their hearts. 52. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and 
exalted them of low degree. 53. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and 
the rich he hath sent empty away. 

" 54. He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy ; 53. (As he 
spake to our fathers), to Abraham, and to his seed for ever." 

Vers. 46-48«. The contrast between the tone of this canticle and Elizabeth's dis- 
course forbids the admission of the reading of some Latin authorities which puts it in 
the mouth of the latter. It is, indeed, Mary's reply to the congratulations of Eliza- 
beth. Luke does not say that Mary was filled with the Spirit (comp. ver. 41). At 
this epoch of her life she dwelt habitually in a divine atmosphere, while the inspira- 
tion of Elizabeth was only momentary. Her first word, [xeya'AvvEL, magnifies, fully 
expresses this state of her soul. In what, indeed, does the magnifying of the Divine 
Being, consist, if not in giving Him, by constant adoration (the verb is in the present 
tense), a larger place in one's own heart and in the hearts of men ? The present, 
magnifies, is in contrast with the aorist, rejoiced, in the following sentence. Some 
would give the aorist here the sense which this tense sometimes has in Greek, that of 
a repetition of the act. It is more natural, however, to regard it as an allusion to a 
particular fact, which kindled in her a joy that was altogether peculiar. The seat of 
this emotion was her spirit — izvevfia, spirit. When the human spirit is referred to in 
Scripture, the word indicates the deepest part of our humanity, the point of contact 
between man and God. The soul is the actual centre of human life, the principle of 
individualit}', and the seat of those impressions which are of an essentially personal 
character. This soul communicates, through the two organs with which it is en- 
dowed, the spirit and the body, with two worlds — the one above, the other below it — 
with the divine world and the world of nature. Thus, while the expression, " My 
soul doth magnify," refers to the personal emotions of Mary, to her feelings as a 
woman and a mother, all which find an outlet in adoration, these words, " My spirit 
hath rejoiced," appear to indicate the moment when, intheprofoundest depths of her 
being, by the touch of the Divine Spirit, the promise of the angel was accomplished 
in her. These two sentences contain yet a third contrast : The Lord whom she mag- 
nifies is the Master of the service to which she is absolutely devoted ; the Saviour in 
whom she has rejoiced is that merciful God who has made her feel His restoring 
power, and who in her person has just saved fallen humanity. Further, it is this 
divine compassion which she celebrates in the following words, ver. 48. What did 
He find in her which supplied sufficient grounds for such a favor? One thing alone 
— her low estate. TaTreivuois does not denote, as TcnzeivoTjjc does, the moral dispo- 
sition of humility ; Mary does not boast of her humility. It is rather, as the form of 
the word indicates, an act of which she had been the object, the humbling influence 
under which she had been brought by her social position, and by the whole circum- 
stances which had reduced her, a daughter of kings, to the rank of the poorest of the 
daughters of Israel. Perhaps the interval between the moment of the incarnation, 
denoted by the aorists Jiath rejoiced, Iwih regarded, and that in which she thus cele» 



64: COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

brated it, was not very great. Was not that thrilling moment, when she entered the 
house of Zacharias, and beheld at a glance in the person ot Elizabeth the fulfilment 
of the sign given her by the angel, the moment of supreme divine manifestation 
toward herself ? The expression, Behold, henceforth, which commences the following 
strophe, thus becomes full of meaning. 

Vers. 485-50. The greatness of her happiness appears in the renown which it will 
bring her ; hence the yap, for. The word behold refers to the unexpected character of 
this dealing. Mary ascribes to God, as its author, the fact which she celebrates, and 
glorifies the three divine perfections displayed in it. And first the power. In call- 
ing God the Almighty, she appears to ma"ke direct allusion to the expression of the 
angel : the power of the Highest (ver. 35). Here is an act in which is displayed, as in 
no other since the appearance of man, the creative power of God. The received 
reading /ueyaTieia answers better than the reading of some Alex., jueydha, to lire em- 
phatic term nitf?DJ» which Luke doubtless read in his Hebrew document (comp. Acts 
2 : 11). But this omnipotence is not of a purely physical character ; it is subservient 
to holiness. This is the second perfection which Mary celebrates. She felt herself, 
in this marvellous work, in immediate contact with supreme holiness ; and she well 
knew that this perfection more than any other constitutes the essence of God : His 
name is holy, The name is the sign of an object in the mind which knows it. The 
name of God therefore denotes, not the Divine Being, but the more or less adequate 
reflection of Him in those intelligences which are in communion with Him. Hence 
we see how this name can be sanctified, rendered holy. The essential nature of God 
may be more clearly understood by His creatures, and more completely disengaged 
from those clouds which have hitherto obscured it in their minds. Thus Mary had 
received, in the experience she had just passed through, a new revelation of the holi- 
ness of the Divine Being. This short sentence is not dependent on the on, because, 
which governs the preceding. For the kqi, and, which follows, establishes a close 
connection between it and ver. 50, which, if subordinated to ver. 49, would be too 
drawn out. This feature of holiness which Mary so forcibly expresses, is, in fact, 
that which distinguishes the incarnation from all the analogous facts of heathen my- 
thologies. 

The third divine perfection celebrated by Mary is mercy (ver. 50). Mary has 
already sung its praise in ver. 48 in relation to herself. She speaks of it here in a 
more general way. By them that fear God, she intends more especially Zacharias and 
Elizabeth, there present before her ; then all the members of her people who share 
with them this fundamental trait of Jewish piety, .and who thus constitute the true 
Israel. The received reading etc yevetis yevefiv, from generation to generation, is a 
form of the superlative which is found in the expression to the age of the ages, the 
meaning of which is "to the most remote generations." The two other readings 
mentioned in the critical notes express continuity rather than remoteness in time. 
These words, ;< on them that fear him," are the transition to the third strophe. 
For they implicitly contain the antithesis which comes out in the verses following. 

Vers. 51-53. A much more strongly marked poetical parallelism characterizes this 
strophe. Mary here describes with a thrill of emotion, of which even her language 
partakes, the great Messianic revolution, the commencement of which she was be- 
holding at that very time. In the choice God had made of two persons of such hum- 
ble condition in life as herself and her cousin, she saw at a glance the great principle 
which would regulate the impending renewal of all things. It is to be a complete ' 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 65 

reversal of the human notions of greatnes3 and meanness. The poor and the hungry 
are evidently the Israelites fearing God of ver. 50. Such expressions cannot apply to 
Israel as a whole — to the proud Pharisees and rich Sadducees, for example. The Hue 
of demarcation which she draws in these words passes, therefore, not between the 
Jews and Gentiles, but between the pious Israelites and all that exalt themselves against 
God, whether in or beyond Israel. The proud, the mighty, and the rich denote Hei od 
and his court, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, as well as the foreign oppressors, 
Caesar and his armies, and all the powers of heathendom. The aorists of these thiee 
verses indicate, according to Bleek, the repetition of the act ; so he translates them 
by the present. I rather think that to Mary's eyes the catastrophe presents itself as 
already consummated in the act which God had just accomplished. Does not this 
act contain the principle of the rejection of all that is exalted in the world, and of the 
choice of whatever in human estimation is brought low V All these divine acts which 
are about to follow, one after another, will only be a further application of the same 
principle. They are virtually contained in that which Mary celebrates. Conse. 
quently the aorists are properly translated by the past. The first proposition of ver- 
51 applies to the righteous and wicked alike. Still the former of these two applica- 
tions predominates (ver. 50). The arm is the symbol of force. The expression ttoieIv 
Kparos, to make strength, is a Hebraism, pif; n^y (P 3 - H8 : 15). The LXX. translate 
it by Toielv dvvafiiv. If it was Luke who translated the Hebrew document into Greek, 
it is evident that he kept his version independent of the LXX. The favor God shows 
to the righteous has its necessary counterpart in the overthrow of the wicked. This 
is the connection of the second proposition. The expression vrreprj^dpovS Siavolp, 
proud in thought, answers to 37 v^ntf (P s > 76 : 6) ; the LXX. translate this expression 
by aovvEToi r?; mpdia. The dative dcavo'ip defines the adjective: "the proud in 
thought, who exalt themselves in their thoughts." Mary represents all these as 
forming an opposing host to men that fear God ; hence the expression scatter. With 
the reading diavolac, inreprjfaivovs is the epithet of the substantive, proud thoughts. 
This reading is evidently a mistake. 

Ver. 52. From the moral contrast between the proud and the faithful, Mary passes 
to a contrast of their social position, the mighty and those of low degree. The former 
are those who reign without that spirit of humility which is inspired by the fear of 
Jehovah. The third antithesis (ver. 53), which is connected with the preceding, is 
that of suffering and prosperity. The hungry represent the class which toils for a 
living — artisans, like Joseph and Mary ; the rich are men gorged with wealth, Israel- 
ites or heathen, who, in the use they make of God's gifts, entirely forget their de- 
pendence and responsibility. The abundance which is to compensate the former cer- 
tainly consists — the contrast requires it — of temporal enjoyments. But since this 
abundance is an effect of the diviue blessing, it implies, as its condition, the possession 
of spiritual graces. For, from the Old Testament point of view, prosperity is only a 
snare, when it does not rest on the foundation of peace with God. And so also, the 
spoliation which is to befall the rich is without doubt the loss of their temporal ad- 
vantages. But what makes this loss a real evil is, that it is the effect of a divine 
curse upon their pride. 

The poetic beauty of these three verses is heightened by a crossing of the members 
of the three antitheses, which is substituted for the ordinary method of symmetrical 
parallelism. In the first contrast (ver. 51), the righteous occupy the first place, the 
proud the second ; in the second, on the contrary (ver. 52), the mighty occupy the 



66 COMMENTARY ON ST* LUKE. 

first place, so as to be m close connection with the proud of ver. 51, and the lowly 
the second ; in the third (ver. 53), the hungry come first, joining themselves with the 
lowly of ver. 52, and the rich form the second member. The mind passes in this 
way, as it were, on the crest of a wave, from like to like, and the taste is not 
offended, as it would have been by a symmetrical arrangement in which the homo- 
geneous members of the contrast occurred every time in the same order. 

Vers. 54, 55. Mary celebrates in this last strophe the faithfulness of God. That, in 
fact, is the foundation of the whole Messianic work. If the preceding strophe un- 
veils to us the future developments of this work, this sends us back to its beginning 
in the remote past. Ilais signifies here servant rather than son. It is an allusion to 
the title of Israel, servant of the Lord (Isa. 41 : 8). The Master sees His well-beloved 
servant crushed beneath the burden which his pitiless oppressors have imposed, and 
he takes it upon himself (middle Xaup&vecQat) in order to comfort him (avri). This 
term, Israel, his servant, seems at first sight to apply to the whole people ; and doubt- 
less it is this explanation that has led several interpreters to apply the expressions, 
proud, mighty, rich, in the preceding verses, solely to foreign oppressors. If, as we 
have seen, the latter explanation cannot be maintained, we must conclude that by 
this Israel, the servant of God, Mary understands the God-fearing Israelites of the 
fiftieth verse, not as individuals, but as the true representatives of the nation itself. 
The faithful portion of the nation is identified in this expression with the nation as 
a whole, because it is its true substance ; besides, Mary could not know beforehand 
how far this true Israel would correspond with the actual people. For her own part, 
she already sees in hope (aorist avreTidfleto) the normal Israel transformed into the 
glorified Messianic nation. Would such a view as this have been possible when once 
the national unbelief had apparently foiled all these Messianic hopes ? There is noth- 
ing here to hinder the infinitive of the end, (ivrjcdjivai, from preserving its proper 
meaning. To remember his promises signifies, in order not to be unfaithful. Erasmus, 
Calvin, and others regard the datives r£> 'Appau/z and r<p aTrip/ua-i as governed by el- 
dTiTjae, in apposition with npbs rods Trarepag: s ' As he spake to our fathers, to Abra- 
ham, aud to his seed ." But this construction is forced and inadmissible. 
Besides, the last words, for ever, if referred to the verb He spake, would ha?e no 
meaning. Therefore we must make the proposition, as he spake to our fathers, a 
parenthesis intended to recall the divine faithfulness, and refer the datives, to Abra- 
ham and to his seed, to the verb, to remember his mercy. It is the dative of favor, to 
remember toward Abraham and . . , For Abraham, as well as his race, eujo} r s 
the mercy which is shoWn to the latter (comp. ver. 17). The words forever qualify 
the idea, not to forget his mercy. Divine forgetfulness will never cause the favor 
premised to Israel to cease. Would any poet have ever put such words into the 
mouth of Mary, when Jerusalem was in ruius and its people dispersed ? 

Ver. 56. is a historical conclusion. Did the departure of Mary take place before 
the birth of John the Baptist ? We might suppose so from the particle Si and the aorist 
kirTirjaOTj (ver. 57), which very naturally imply a historical succession. But, on the 
other hand, it would be hardly natural that Mary should leave at a time when the 
expected deliverance of Elizabeth was so near at hand. This verse, therefore, must 
be regarded as a historical anticipation, such as is frequently found in Luke. Comp. 
1 : 65, 3 ; 19, 20, etc. 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 67 

FOURTH NARRATIVE. — CHAP. 1 : 57-80. 

Birth and Circumcision of John the Baptist. 

Here opens the second cycle of the narratives of the infancy. This first narration 
comprises — 1. The birth of John (vers. 57, 58) ; 2. The circumcision of the child 
(vers. 59-66) ; 3. The song of Zacharias, with a short historical conclusion (vers. 
67-80). 

1. Birth of John : vers. 57 and 58. These verses are like a pleasing picture of Jew- 
ish home life. We see the neighbors and relations arriving one after the other — the 
former first, because they live nearest. Elizabeth, the happy mother, is the central 
figure of the scene ; every one comes up to her in turn , 'EjaeydXvve [iet* avrfji, literally, 
he had magnified with her, is a Hebraistic expression (^ 7*"^n ' comp. 1 Sam. 13 : 24 
in the LXX.). This use of uerd, with, comes from the fact that man is in such cases 
the material which concurs in the result of the divine action. 

2. Circumcision of John : vers. 59-66.* As an Israelitish child by its birth became 
a member of the human family, so by circumcision, on the corresponding day of the 
following week, he was incorporated into the covenant (Gen. 17) ; and it was the cus- 
tom on this occasion to give him his name. The subject of if/.Qov, came, is that of 
the preceding verse. It has been maintained that the text suggests something miracu- 
lous in the agreement of Elizabeth and Zacharias ; as if, during the nine months 
which had just passed away, the father had not made to the mother a hundred times 
over the communication which he presently makes to all present (ver. 63) J How 
many times already, especially during Mary's stay in their house, must the names of 
John and Jesus have been mentioned ! It has been inferred from the words, tliey 
made signs to him (ver. 62), that Zacharias became deaf as well as dumb. But the 
case of Zacharias cannot be assimilated to that of deaf mutes from their birth, in whom 
dumbness ordinarily results from deafness. The whole* scene, on the contrary, im- 
plies that Zacharias had heard everything. The use of the language of signs proceeds 
simply from this, that we instinctively adopt this means of communication toward 
those who can speak in no other way. 

Ver. 63. The word 'Aeyuv aided to eypaipev is a Hebraism (~» ; ^^ 2ITH> ^ Kings 10 . 
6), the meaning of which is, " deciding the question." The expression, his name is, 
points to a higher authority which has so determined it ; and it is this circumstance, 
rather than the agreement between the father and mother — a fact so easily explained 
— which astonishes the persons present. Every. one recalls on this occasion the 
strange events which had preceded the birth of the child. 

Ver. 64. Zacharias, thus obedient, recovers his speech, of which his want of faith 
had deprived him. The verb aveuxfy, was opened, does not agree with the second 
subject, the tongue, for which the verb was loosed, taken from the preceding verb, 
must be supplied. In the words, he spake and praised God, naturally it is on the 
word spake that the emphasis rests, in opposition to his previous dumbness. The 
last words are only an appendix serving to introduce the song which follows. We 
must therefore refrain from translating, with Ostervald, " He spake by praising 
God." 

* Ver. 61. ft. A. B. C. L. A. A. Z. IT. and some Mnn. read e* rjjr ovyyeveiaS, in place 
of ev tt} avyyeveta, the reading of T. R., with 11 Mjj., the greater part of the Mnn. 
Syr. It. Ver. 62. ft. B. D. F. G., avTo in place of avrov. Ver. 65. ft* reads 6ta ra 
instead of titeX kasito -xavra ra, Ver. 66. ft. B. C. D. L. It. Vg. add yap after kql, 



68 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

Ver. 65. At the sight of this miracle, surprise changes into fear. And this im- 
pression spreads abroad, with the report of these facts, throughout all the country. 
That is mere especially the sense of the reading of 2*, which, however, from a critical 
poiut of view, it is impossible to adopt. Ver. 66. They not merely told, they laid to 
heait ; these were the first emotions of the Messianic era. The Alex, reading, nal 
ytip, for also the hand of the Lord was with him, although adopted by Tischendorf , 
appears to us untenable. Whether, in fact, this/cr be put in the mouth of the nar- 
rator, or be assigned to the persons who ask the preceding question, in either case • 
these words, the 7iand of the Lord was with him, must refer to all the circumstances 
which have just been narrated, while, according to the natural sense of the imperfect 
■yv, was, they apply to the entire childhood of John the Baptist. This for has been 
wrongly added, with a view of making this reflection the motive of the preceding 
question. The T. R. is supported by not only the majority of the Mjj., but more 
especially by the agreement of the Alexandrinus and of the Peschito, which is always 
a criteiion worthy of attention. The development of this child was effected with the 
marked concurrence of divine power. The hand, here as usually, is the emblem of 
force. These last words form the first of those resting-points which we shall often 
meet with in the course of our Gospel, and which occur in the book of the Acts. It 
is a picture, drawn with a single stroke of the pen, of the entire childhood of John 
the Baptist. Comp. ver. 80, which describes, by a corresponding formula, his youth. 

3. The song of Zacharias : vers. 67-80. It might be supposed that Zacharias com- 
posed this song in view of the religious and moral progress of the child., or on the 
occasion of some special event in which the divine power within him was displayed 
during the course of his childhood. We are led, however, to another supposition by 
the connection between the first words of the song, Blessed be the Lord and the 
expression which the evangelist has employed in ver. 64, "he spake, blessing God." 
This song, which was composed in the priest's mind during the time of his silence, 
broke solemnly from his lips the moment speech was restored to him, as Ihe metal 
flows from the crucible in which it has been melted the moment that an outlet is 
made for it. At ver. 64 Luke is contented to indicate the place of the song, in order 
not to interrupt the narrative, and he has appended the song itself to his narrative, as 
possessing a value independent of the time when it was uttered. We observe in the 
hymn of Zacharias the same order as in the salutation of Elizabeth. The theocratic 
sentiment breaks forth first : Zacharias gives thanks for the arrival of the times of 
the Messiah (vers. 68-75). Then his paternal feeling comes out, as it were, in a pa- 
renthesis : the father expresses his joy at the glorious part assigned to his son in this 
great work (vers. 76 and 77) ; lastly, thanksgiving for the Messianic salvation over- 
flows and closes the song (vers. 78 and 79). The spiritual character of this passage 
appears even from this exposition. It is the work of the Holy Spirit alone to subor- 
dinate even the legitimate emotions of paternal affection to the theocratic sentiment. 

1st. Vers. 67-75. Zacharias gives thanks first of all for the coming of the Messiah 
(vers. 67-70) ; then for the deliverance which His presence is about to procure for 
Israel (vers. 71-75). 

Vers. 67-75.* "And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and 

* Ver. 70, &. B. L. W c . A. some Mnn. Or. omit tuv after ayav. Ver. 74. &. B. 
L. W c . some Mnn. Or. omit tjhuv. Ver. 75. B. L., rats 7}fiepat.s, instead of ras 
tifiepas. ». A. B. C. D. and 11 other Mjj. 40 Mnn. Syr. It. omit r^s fays, which is 
the reading of T. R. with 7 Mjj. Or. 



\ 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 69 

prophesied, saying, 68. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel ; for He hath visited and 
redeemed His people, 09. And hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house 
of His servant David. 70. As He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, which 
have been since the world began ; 71. That we should be saved from our enemies, 
and from the hand of all that hate us ; 72. To perform the mercy promised to our 
fathers, and to remember His holy covenant, 73. The oath which He sware to our 
father Abraham, 74. That He would grant unto us, that we, being delivered out of 
the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear. 75. In holiness and right- 
eousness before Him, all the days of our life." 

The aorists, hath raised up, hath delivered, imply a knowledge on Zacharias' part 
of the fact of the incarnation. The term visited refers to the absence of God during 
the four centuries in which the prophetic voice had been silent and heaven shut. The 
abstract expressions of the sixty eighth verse are followed in ver. 69 by one more con- 
crete. Zacharias is emboldened to designate the Messiah Himself. He calls Him a 
horn of salvation. This image of a horn is frequent in the Old Testament, where it 
had been already applied to the Messiah : I will raise up a horn to David (Ps. 132 : 16). 
The explanation must be found neither in the horns of the altar on which criminals 
sought to lay hold, nor in the horns with which they ornamented their helmets ; 
the figure is taken from the horns of the bull, in which the power of this animal 
resides. It is a natural image among an agricultural people. The term fjyeipe, hath 
raised up, is properly applied to an organic growth, like a horn. Just as the strength 
of the animal is concentrated in its horn, so all the delivering power granted to the 
family of David for the advantage of the people will be concentrated in the Messiah. 
This verse implies that Zacharias regarded Mary as a descendant of David, in ver. 
70, Zacharias sets forth the greatness of this appearing by referring to the numerous 
and ancient promises of which it is the subject. Whether with or without the article 
tuv, uycuv {holy) must in any case be taken as an adjective ; and it is unnecessary to 
translate, of His saints of every age who have been propliets, which would imply 
that all the saints have prophesied. If tuv is retained, the word simply serves as a 
point of support to the definitive term utt' aluvog. The epithet holy characterizes 
the prophets as organs, not of a human and consequently profane word, but of a 
diviue revelation. Holiness is the distinctive feature of all that emanates from God. 
We may judge, by the impression which the certain approach of Christ's advent 
would make on us, of the feeling which must have been produced in the hearts of 
these people by the thought, The Messiah is there ; history, long suspended, resumes 
its march, and touches its goal. 

In vers. 71-75, Zacharias describes the work of this Messiah. The most natural 
explanation of ourripiav, salvation, is to regard this word as in apposition with the 
term horn, of salvation (ver. 69). The notion of salvation is easily substituted for that 
of a Saviour. The idea of salvation, brought out in this first word, is exhibited in its 
full meaning in ver. 74. The two terms, our enemies, and them that hate us, cannot be 
altogether synonymous. The former denotes the foreign heathen oppressors ; the 
latter would embrace also the native tyrants, Herod and his party, so odious to true 
Israelites. In granting this deliverance, God shows mercy (ver. 72), not only to the 
living, but to the dead, who were waiting with the heartsickness of deferred hope for 
the accomplishment of the promises, and especially of the oaths of God. On this 
idea, see 1 : 17 ; for the infinitive /ivrjotir/vaL, ver. 54 ; for the turn of expression irotetv 
fitrd, ver. 58. "Opuov (ver. 73) is in apposition with SiaGy/uiS. The accusative is occa- 



70 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

sioned by the pronoun 6v. This attraction is the more easily accounted for, that 
(ivaoBai is construed in the LXX. with the accusative and the genitive indifferently. 
The infinitive to grant expresses the long-expected end of the development of proph- 
ecy, a development which seems designed to typify this long period. The article 
rov characterizes the infinitive dovvai as the end desired and determined from the 
beginning. Grammatically, it depends on bpmv ; logically, on all that precedes. In 
the following phrase, the relation of fivcQivTag to latpsveiv should be observed : after 
having been delivered, to serve God: the end is perfect religious service; political 
deliverance is only a means to it. Perfect worship requires outward security. The 
Messiah is about to reign ; no Antiochus Epiphanes or Pompey shall any more pro- 
fane the sanctuary ! We find here in all its purity the ideal salvation as it is 
described in the Old Testament, and as the son of Zacharias himself understood it 
to the very last. Its leading feature is the indissoluble union of the two deliverances, 
the religious and the political ; it was a glorious theocracy founded on national holi- 
ness. This programme prevented John the Baptist from identifying himself with 
the course of the ministry of Jesus. How, after the unbelief of Israel had created a 
gulf between the expectation and the facts, could a later writer, attributing to Zach- 
arias just what words he pleased, put into his mouth these fond hopes of earlier 
days ? 

'Oo7<5Yr/S, purity, and dimioovvrj, righteousness (ver. 75), have been distinguished in 
several ways. Bleek and others refer the former of these terms to the inward 
disposition, the latter to the outward conduct. But righteousness, in the Scriptures, 
comprehends more than the outward act. Others apply the former to relations with 
God, the latter to relations with men. But righteousness also comprehends man's 
relations with God. It appears to us rather that purity, oolJttjS, is a negative qual- 
ity, the absence of stain ; and righteousness duiaLoovvri, a positive quality, the pres- 
ence of all those religious and moral virtues which render worship acceptable to 
God. Comp. Eph. 4 : 24. The authorities decide in favor of the excision of the 
words T7jc C"W, although the French translation cannot dispense with them. At the 
time of the captivity, the prophet- priest Ezekiel contemplated, under the image of 
a temple of perfect dimensions, the perfected theocracy (Ezek. 40 : 48). Here the 
priest prophet Zacharias contemplates the same ideal under the image of an uninter- 
rupted and undefiled worship. The Holy Spirit adapts the form of His revelations 
to the habitual prepossessions of those who are to be the organs of them. 

2d. Vers. 76, 77. From the height to which he has just attained, Zacharias allows 
his glance to fall upon the little child at rest before him, and he assigns him his part 
in the work which has begun. Ver 76 refers to him personally, ver. 77 to his 
mission. 

Vers. 76 and 77.* " And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest, 
for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, 77. To give knowl- 
edge of salvation unto His people by the remission of their sins." 

The reading ml cv, and thou, connects, by an easy transition, the forerunner with 
the work of the Messiah. The Alex, reading, ml cv 6i, but thou, brings out more 
strongly, too strongly, doubtless, this secondary personality ; it has against it not 
only the sixteen other Mjj., but further, the Peschito, the Italic, Irenaeus, and 

* Ver. 76. &. B. C. D. L. R read 6e after mc cv. 2*. B. Or., evomov instead of 
vpo TrpoccoTTov. Ver. 77 r A. C. M. O. R. U., some Mnn., read rj/uov instead of avrcov. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 71 

Origen, and must therefore be rejected. The title of prophet of the Highest simply 
places John the Baptist in that choir of the prophets of whom Zacharias speaks in 
ver. 70 ; later on, Jesus will assign him a higher place. In saying the Lord, Zach- 
arias can only be thinking of the Messiah. This is proved by the npo, before Him, in 
nponopavcri, and the avrov, His ways. But he could not designate Him by this name, 
unless, with Malachi, he recognized in His coming the appearing of Jehovah (comp. 
1 :17, 4.3, 3 : 11). The second proposition is a combination of the two propositions, 
Isa. 40 : 3 (eroipidnai) and Mai. 3 : 1 (irpoiropevcr)), prophecies which are also found 
combined in Mark 1 : 2, 3. The article rod before Sovvai, to give, indicates a purpose. 
This word, in fact, throws a vivid light on the aim of John the Baptist's ministry. 
Why was the ministry of the Messiah preceded by that of another divine messenger ? 
Because the very notion of salvation was falsified in Israel, and had to be corrected 
before salvation could be realized. A carnal and malignant patriotism had taken 
possession of the people and their rulers, and the idea of a political deliverance had 
been substituted for that of a moral salvation. If the notion of salvation had not been 
restored to its scriptural purity before being realized by the Messiah, not only would 
He have had to employ a large part of the time assigned to Him in accomplishing this 
indispensable task ; but further, He would certainly have been accused of inventing 
a theory of salvation to suit His impotence to effect any other. There was needed, 
then, another person, divinely authorized, to remind the people that perdition con- 
sisted not in subjection to the Romans, but in divine condemnation ; and that salva- 
tion, therefore, was not temporal emancipation, but the forgiveness of sins. To im- 
plant once more in the hearts of the people this notion of salvation was indeed to 
prepare the way for Jesus, who was to accomplish this salvation, and no other. The 
last words, by the remission of their sins, depend directly on the word ourrjpias, 
salvation: salvation by, that is to say, consisting in. The article rf/S is omitted 
before h cKpiaet, as is the case when the definitive forms, with the word on which it 
depends, merely one and the same notion. The pronoun avruv refers to aft the indi- 
viduals comprehended under the collective idea of people. The authorities which read 
71/iuv are insufficient. The words to His people show that Israel although the people 
of God, were blind to the way of salvation. John the Baptist was to show to this 
people, who believed that all they needed was political restoration, that they were 
cot less guilty than the heathen, and that they needed just as much divine pardon. 
This was precisely the meauing of the baptism to which he invited the Jews. 

3d. Vers. 78 and 79. After this episode, Zacharias returns to the principal sub 
ject of his song, and, in an admirable closing picture, describes the glory of Messiah's 
appearing, and of the salvation which He brings. 

Vers. 78 and 79.* " Through the tender, mercy of our God, whereby the dayspring 
from on high hath visited us, 79. To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the 
shadow of death, to guide our feet unto the way of peace." 

Zacharias ascends to the highest source whence this stream of grace pours down 
upon our earth — the divine mercy. This idea is naturally connected with that of 
pardon (ver. 77), as is expressed by 6ia with the accusative, which means properly 
by reason of. The bowels in Scripture are the seat of all the sympathetic emotions. 
2TrAdyxva answers to C^DiTV The future ETncntyeTat., will visit, in some Alex., is 
evidently a correction suggested by the consideration that Christ was not born at the 

* Ver. 78. &. B. L. , eiriOKeiierai. instead of eTteaKexparo. 



TZ COHMEtfTAKY OK ST. LUKE. 

time Zacharias was speaking. Yet even such instances as these do not disturb the 
failh of critics in the authority of Alexandrine mss. ! 

All the images in the picture portrayed in vers. 78, 79 appear to be borrowed 
from the following comparison : A caravan misses its way and is lost in the desert ; 
the unfortunate pilgrims, overtaken by night, are sitting down in the midst of this 
fearful darkness, expecting death. All at once a bright star rises in the horizon and 
lights up the plain ; the travellers, taking courage at this sight, arise, and by the light 
of this star find the road which leads them to the end of their journey. The substan- 
tive ava.ro/lr/, the rising, which by general consent is here translated the dawn, has 
two senses in the LXX. It is employed to translate the noun j"|DK> branch, by which 
Jeremiah and Zechariah designate the Messiah. This sense of the word avaro'A?} is 
unknown in profane Greek. The term is also used by the LXX. to express the rising 
of a heavenly body — the rising of the moon, for instance ; comp. Isa. 60 : 19. This 
sense agrees with the meaning of the verb avartkAziv ; Isa. 60 : 1, " The glory of the 
Lord hath risen (avareraAxev) upon thee;" Mai. 4:2, "The sun of righteousness 
shall rise (avareAel) upon you." This is the meaning of the word avaroArj in good 
Greek. And it appears to us that this is its meaning here. It follows, indeed, from 
the use of the verb hath visited us, which may very well be said of a star, but not of 
a branch ; and the same remark applies to the images that follow, to light and to 
direct (ver. 79). Besides, the epithet from on high agrees much better with the figure 
of a star than with that of a plant that sprouts. The regimen from on high does not 
certainly quite agree with the verb to tug. But the term from on high is suggested by 
the idea of visiting, which goes before : it is from the bosom of divine mercy that this 
star comes down, and it does not rise upon humanity until after it has descended and 
been made man. Bleek does not altogether reject this obvious meaning of avarokr} ; but 
he maintains that we should combine it with the sense of branch, by supposing a play of 
words turning upon the double image of a sprouting branch and a rising star ; and as 
there is no Hebrew word which will bear this double meaning, he draws from this 
passage the serious critical consequence, that this song, and therefore all the others 
contained in these two chapters, were originally written, not in Aramean, but in 
Greek, which of course deprives them of their authenticity. But this whole ex- 
planation is simply a play of Bleek's imagination. There is nothing in the text to 
indicate that the author intends any play upon words here ; and, as we have seen, 
none of the images employed are compatible with the meaning of branch. 

The expressions of ver. 79 are borrowed from Isa. 9 : 1, 60 : 2. Darkness is the em- 
blem of alienation from God, and of the spiritual ignorance that accompanies it. This 
darkness is a shadow of death, because it leads to perdition, just as the darkening of 
sight in the dying is a prelude to the night of death. The term sit denotes a state of 
exhaustion and despair. The sudden shining forth of the star brings the whole 
caravan of travellers to their feet (rows nodas), and enables them to find their way. 
The tcay of peace denotes the means of obtaining reconciliation with God, the chief 
of all temporal and spiritual blessings. Elp^vrj, peace, answers to Cl*?^', a word by 
which the Hebrew language designates the bountiful supply of whatever answers to 
human need — full prosperity. 

Ver. 80. The historical conclusion, ver. 80, corresponds with that in ver. 66. As 
the latter sketches with a stroke of the pen the childhood of John, so this gives a pic- 
ture of his youth, and carries us forward to the time when he began his ministry. 
The term he grew refers to his physical development, and the expression following, 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 73 

waxed strong in spirit, to his spiritual development, that is to say, religious, moral, 
and intellectual. The predominant feature of this development was force, energy (he 
grew strong in spirit.) Luke, doubtless, means by this the power of the will over the 
instincts and inclinations of the body. The spirit is here certainly that of John him- 
self ; but when a man develops in a right way, it is only by communion with the 
Divine Spirit that his spirit unfolds, as the flower only blows when in contact with 
the light. This spiritual development of John was due to no human influence. For 
the child lived in the deserts. Probably the desert of Judea is meant here, an in- 
habited country, whose deeply creviced soil affords an outlet to several streams that 
empty themselves into the Dead Sea. This country, abounding in caves, has always 
been the refuge of anchorites. In the time of John the Baptist there were probably 
Essenian monasteries there ; for history says positive^ that these cenobites dwelt 
upon both shores of the Dead Sea. It has been inferred from this passage that John, 
during his sojourn in the desert, visited these sages, and profited by their teaching. 
This opinion is altogether opposed to the design of the text, which i3 to attribute lo 
God alone the direction of the development of the forerunner. But more than this^ 
If John was taught by the Essenes, it must be admitted that the only thing their in- 
structions did for him was to lead him to take entirely opposite views on all points. 
The Essenes had renounced every Messianic expectation ; the soul of John's life and 
ministry was the expectation of the Messiah and the preparation for H : s work. The 
Essenes made matter the seat of sin ; John, by his energetic calls to conversion, 
shows plainly enough that he found it in the will. The Essenes withdrew from society, 
and gave themselves up to mystic contemplation ; John, at the signal from on high, 
threw himself boldly into the midst of the people, and to th« very last took a most active 
and courageous part in the affairs of his country. If, after all, any similar ities are 
found between him and them, John's originality is too well established to attribute 
them to imitation; such similarities arise from the attempt they both made to effect 
a reform in degenerate Judaism. The relation of John to the Essenes is very similar 
to that of Luther to the mystics of the middle ages. On the part of the Essenes, as 
of the mystics, there is the human effort which attests the need ; on the part of John, 
as well as of Luther, the divine work which satisfies it. The abstract plural in tlie 
deserts proves that this observation is made with a moral and not a geographical aim. 
The word avddetijis, shotting, denotes the installation of a servant into his office, his 
official institution into his charge. The author of this act, unnamed but under- 
stood, is evidently God. It follows from 3 : 2, and from John 1 : 31-33, that a direct 
communication from on high, perhaps a theophany, such as called Moses from the 
desert, was the signal for John to enter upon his work. But we have no account of 
this scene which took place between God and His messenger. Our evangelists only 
relate what they know. 

FIFTH* NARRATIVE. —CHAP. 2 : 1-20. 

The Birth of the Saviour. 

Henceforth there exists in the midst of corrupt humanity a pure Being, on whom 
God's regard can rest with unmingled satisfaction. Uniting in this divine contem- 
plation, the celestial intelligences already see streaming from this fire those waves of 
light which will ultimately penetrate to the remotest bounds of the moral universe. 
The new creation, the union of God with the sanctified creature, begins to find its ac- 



74 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

complishment in this Being, in order to extend from Him to the whole of mankind, 
and to comprehend at last heaven itself, which is to be united with us under one and 
the same head, and to adore one Lord Jesus Christ as its Lord (Col. 1 : 20 ; Eph. 
1 : 10 ; Phil. 2 : 9-11). Such is the point of view we must take in order to appreciate 
the following narrative : 1. Jesus is born (vers. 1-7) ; 2. The angels celebrate this 
birth (vers. 8-14) ; 3. The shepherds ascertain and publish it (vers. 15-20). 

1. The Birth of Jesus ; vers. 1-7. And first a historical note : vers. 1 and 2.* 
The words in those days refer to the time which followed the birth of John the Bap- 
list, and give the remark in 1 : 80 ati anticipatory character. Adyjua denotes, in clas- 
sical Greek, any edict of a recognized authority. The use of the word e&aQeIv, to 
go forth, in the sense of being published, answers to the meaning of ft\p, Dan. 9 : 2, 3. 
The term anoypacp?}, description, denotes among the Romans the inscription on an 
official register of the name, age, profession, and fortune of each head of a family, and 
of the number of his children, with a view to the assessment of a tax. The fiscal 
taxation which followed was more particularly indicated by the term ccKOTifujaiS. Criti- 
cism raises several objections against the truth of the fact related in ver. 1 : 1st, No 
historian of the time mentions such a decree of Augustus. 2d, On the supposition 
that Augustus had issued such an edict, it would not have been applicable to the states 
of Herod in general, nor to Judea in particular, since this country was not reduced to 
a Roman province until ten or eleven years later — the year 6 of our era. 3d, A Roman 
edict, executed within the states of Herod, must have been executed according to 
Roman forms ; and according to these, it would have been in no way necessary for 
Joseph to put in an appearance at Bethlehem ; for, according to Roman law, regis- 
tration was made at the place of birth or residence, and not at the place where the 
family originated. 4th, Even admitting the necessity of removal in the case of Joseph, 
this obligation did not extend to Mary, who, as a woman, was not liable to registra- 
tion. In order to meet some of these difficulties, Hug has limited the meaning of the 
words, all the earth, to Palestine. But the connection of this expression with the 
name Ca3sar Augustus will not allow of our accepting this explanation ; besides 
which, it leaves several of the difficulties indicated untouched. The reader who feels 
any confidence in Luke's narrative, and who is desirous of solving its difficulties, will 
find, we think, a solution resulting from the following facts : 

From the commencement of his reign, Augustus always aimed at a stronger cen- 
tralization of the empire. Already, under Julius Caesar,, there had been undertaken, 
with a view to a more exact assessment of taxation, a great statistical work, a com- 
plete survey of the empire, descriptio orbis. This work, which occupied thirty-two 
years, was only finished under Augustus, f This prince never ceased to labor in the 
same direction. After his death, Tiberius caused to be read in the Senate, in accord- 
ance with instructions contained in the will of Augustus, a statistical document, 
which applied not only to the empire properly so called, but also to the allied king, 
doms— a category to which the states of Herod belonged. This document, called 
" Breviarium totius imperii," was written entirely by Augustus' own hand.J It gave 

* Ver. 2. &. B. D. omit rj after avrrj. Instead of cmoypayr) Trpurrj eyevero, & * reads 
anoypa^rj eyevero rrpurj]. Instead of Kvprjviov, A. Kypwiov, B* Kvpeivov, B 3 . It. Vg. 
Kvpivov (Cyriuo). 

f See the recent work of Wieseler, ■' Beitrage zur richtigen Wiirdigung der 
Evangelien," etc., 1869, p. 23. 

X Tacitus Ann. i. 11 ; Suetonius, Octav. c. 27, 28, 101. . 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 75 

" the number of the citizens and of allies under arms, of the fleets, of the kingdoms, 
of the provinces, of tlie tributes or taxes." The compilation of such a document as 
this necessarily supposes a previous statistical labor, comprehending not only the em- 
pire proper, but also the allied states. And if Augustus had ordered this work, 
Herod, whose kingdom belonged to the number of regno, reddita, could not have re- 
fused to take part in it. The silence of historians in regard to this fact proves simply 
nothing against its reality. Wieseler gives' a host of examples of similar omissions. 
The great statistical work previously accomplished by Julius Caesar, and about which 
no one can entertain a doubt, is not noticed by any historian of the time.* Josephus, 
in his " Jewish War," written before his " Antiquities," when giving an account of 
the government of Coponius, does not mention even the census of Quirinius.f Then 
it must not be forgotten that one or. our principal sources for the life of Augustus, 
Dion Cassius, presents a blauk for just the years 748-750 u.c. Besides, this silence 
is amply compensated for by the positive information we find in later writers. Thus, 
Tertullian mentions, as a well-known fact, " the census taken in Judea under Augus- 
tus by Sentius Saturnius," % that is to say, from 744-748 u.c, and consequently only a 
short time before the death of Herod in 750. The accounts of Oassiodorus and Suidas 
leave no doubt as to the great statistical labors accomplished by the orders of Au- 
gustus. § The latter says expressly : " Ca33ar Augustus, having chosen twenty men 
of the greatest ability, sent them into all the countries of the subject nations (rtiv 
v~7}kouv), und caused them to make a registration (anoypacpds) of men and property 
(ruvre avOpunuv na\ ova ttiv)." These details are not furnished by Luke. And if the 
task of these commissioners specially referred, as Suidas says, to the subject nations, 
the omission of all mention of this measure in the historians of the time is more easily 
accounted for. 

Surprise is expressed at an edict of Augustus having reference to the states of 
Herod. But Herod's independence was only relative. There is no money known to 
have been coined in his name ; the silver coin circulating in his dominions was 
Roman. I From the time of the taking of Jerusalem by Pompey, the Jews paid the Ro- 
mans a double tribute, a poll-tax and a land -tax. ^[ Tacitus also speak of complaints 
from Syria and Judea against the taxes which burdened them. Further, the Jews 
had quite recently, according to Josephus, been obliged to take individually an oath 
of obedience to the emperor (" Antiq. " xvii. 2, 4). The application of a decree of Au- 
gustus to the dominions of Herod, a simple vassal of the emperor, presents, therefore, 
nothing improbable. Only it is evident that the emperor, in the execution of the 
decree, would take care to respect in form the sovereignty of the king, and to exe- 
cute it altogether by his instrumentality. Besides, it was the custom of the Ro- 
mans, especially in their fiscal measures, always to act by means of the local authori- 
ties, and to conform as far as possible to national usages.** Augustus would not tic- 
part from this method in regard to Herod, who was generally an object of favor. 
And this observation overthrows another objection, namely, that according to Roman 

* Wieseler, in the work referred to, p. 51. \ Ibid. p. 95. 

% Sed et census constat ados sub Auguste . . . in Judoza per Sentium Satur- 
nium {Adv. Marc. 19). The word constat appears to allude to public documents ; and 
the detail by Sentius Saturnius proves that his source of information was indepen- 
dent of Luke. 

§ Wieseler, p. 53. || Ibid. p. 86. IF Ibid. p. 73 and fol. 

** Comp. on this point the recent works of Huschke (" Ueber den Census der 
Kaiserzeit") and of Marquadt (" Handbuch der romischen Alterthumer"). 



76 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

custom Joseph would not have to present himself in the place where his family 
originated, since the census was taken at the place of residence. But Roman usage 
did not prevail here. In conformity with the remnant of independence which Judea 
still enjoyed, the census demanded by the emperor would certainly be executed ac- 
cording to Jewish forms. These, doubtless, were adapted to the ancient constitution 
of tribes and families, the basis of Israelitish organization : this mode was at once the 
simplest, since the greater part of the families still lived on their hereditary posses- 
sions, and the surest, inasmuch as families that had removed would be anxious to 
strengthen a link on which might depend questions of inheritance and other rights 
besides.* That which distinguished the census of Quirinius, ten years later, from all 
similar undertakings that had preceded it, was just this, that on this occasion the 
Roman authority as such executed it, without the intervention of the national power 
and Jewish customs. Then, accordingly, the people keenly felt the reality of their 
subjection, and broke into revolt. And history has preserved scarcely any record of 
similar measures which preceded this eventful census. 

As to Mary, we may explain without any difficulty the reasons which induced her 
to accompany Joseph. If, at ver. 5, we make the words with Mary depend specially 
on the verb in order to be enrolled, the fact may be explained by the circumstanqe 
that, according to Roman law, women among conquered nations were subject to the 
capitation tax. Ulpian expressly says this (Be censibus) : " that inSyria (this term 
comprehends Palestine) men are liable to the capitation from their fourteenth year, 
women from their twelfth to their sixtieth." Perhaps women were sometimes sum- 
moned to appear in person, in order that their age might be ascertained. Or, indeed, 
we may suppose that Mary was the sole representative of one of the branches of her 
tribe, an heiress, which obliged her to appear in person. Perhaps, also, by the in- 
scription of her name she was anxious to establish anew, in view of her son, her de- 
scent from the family of David. But we may join the words with Mary to the verb 
went up. The motives which would induce Mary to accompany Joseph in this jour- 
ney are obvious. If, in the whole course of the Gospel history, we never see the 
least reflection cast on the reputation of Mary, although only six months bad elapsed 
between her marriage and the birth of Jesus, is not this circumstance explained by 
the very fact of this journey, which providentially removed Joseph and Mary from 
Nazareth for a sufficient length of time, just when the bit tli took place ? Mary must 
have recognized the finger of God in the event which compelled Joseph to leave 
home, aad have been anxious to accompany him. 

But a much more serious difficulty than any of the preceding arises relative to ver. 
2. If this verse is translated, as it usually is, "This census, which was the first, 
took place when Quirinius governed Syria," we must suppose, on account of what 
precedes, that Quirinius filled this office before the death of Herod. But history 
proves that Quirinius did not become governor of Syria until the year 4, and that he 
did not execute the enumeration which bears his name until the year 6 of our era, 
after the deposition of Archelaus, the son and successor of Herod, that is to say, ten 
years at least after the birth of Jesus. It was Varus who was governor of Syria at 
the death of Herod. An attempt has been made to solve this difficulty by correcting 
the text : Theodore de Beza by making ver. 2 an interpolation ; Michaelis by adding 
the words rrpo r;?s after eyevero.: "This enumeration took place before that which 

* Wieseler, pp. 66, 67. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 77 

Quirinius executed . . ."* These are conjectures without foundation. Again, 
it has been proposed to give the word -kputt), first, a meaning more or less unusual. 
And accordingly, some translate this word as primus is sometimes to be taken in 
Latin, and as erst regularly in German: "This census was executed only when 
. . ." (prima accedit cum, geschali erst als). Such a Latinism is hardly admissi- 
ble. And besides, if the execution had not followed the decree immediately (as the 
translation supposes), how could the decree have led to the removal of Joseph and the 
birth tf Jesus at Bethlehem while Herod was still reigning ? 

An interpretation of the word npuTtj which is scarcely less forced, has been adopted 
by Tholuck, Ewald, Wieseler (who maintains and defends it at length in his last 
woik), and Pressense (in his " Vie de Jesus"). Relying on John 1 : 15, npuToS fiov, 
15:18, npuTov vfxuv, they give to trpuTij the sense of 'n-poripa, and explain Tcpurrj 
7jyefj.ovevovTog as if it were -Kponpov % 7]je/u.ovevEiv ; which results in the following 
translation: "This enumeration took place before Quirinius . . ." They cite 
from the LXX. Jer. 29 : 2, varspov k^eW6v~og 'lexoviov, "after Jechonias was gone 
forth ;" and from Plato, vc-epoi. atyinovTo ttjS ev MapaQuvi fiaxyS y£vo/j.£V7}$, " they 
arrived after the battle of Marathon had taken place." But this accumulation of 
two irregularities, the employment of the superlative for the comparative, and of the 
comparative adjective for the adverb, is not admissible in such a writer as Luke, 
whose style is generally perfectly lucid, especially if, with Wieseler, after having 
given to irp^rn the sense of a comparative, we want to keep, in addition, its superla- 
tive meaning : " This enumeration took place as a firstone, and before that . . ." 
This certainly goes beyond all limits of ^hat is possible, whatever the high philolog- 
ical authorities may say for it, upon whose support this author thinks he can rely.f 
Another attempt at interpretation, proposed by Ebrard, sets out from a distinction 
between the meaning of a-noypd^Eodat (ver. 1) and of dnoypatbr] (ver. 2). The former of 
these two interpretations may denote the registration, the second the pecuniary tax- 
ation which resulted from it (the cncoTiniioiS) ,- and this difference of meaning would 
be indicated by the pronoun avrrj, which it would be necessary to read avrrj (ipsa), 
and not avrrj (ea). " As to the taxation itself (which followed the registration), it took 
place only when Quirinius was . . ." But why, in this case, did not Luke em- 
ploy, in the second verse, another word than airoypa^rj, which evidently recalled the 
aizoypdqEodai of ver. 1 ? Kohler % acknowledged that these two words should have an 
identical meaning ; but, with Paulus, Lange, and others, he thinks he can distinguish 
between the publication of the decree (ver. 1) and its execution (ver. 2), which only 
took place ten years afterward, and, with this meaning, put the accent on Eyivero: 
" Csesar Augustus published a decree (ver. 1), and the registration decreed by him was 
executed (only) when Quirinius . . . " (ver. 2). But the difficulty is to see how this 
decree, if it was not immediately enforced, could induce the removal of Joseph and 
Mary. Kohler replies that the measure decreed began to be carried into execution ; 
but on account of the disturbances which it excited it was soon suspended, and that 
it was only resumed and completely carried out (hysvETo) under Quirinius. This ex- 
planation is ingenious, but very artificial. And further, it does not suit the context. 

* For this sense it would be better to conjecture a reading npd t??s as a substitute 
for npuTT}, admitting at the same time the place which the last word occupies in the 
text of ft and D. 

+ MM. Curtius at Leipsic and Schomann at Greifswald. 

if " Encyclopedic de Herzog," Art. " Schatzung." 



78 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

Luke, after having positively denied the execution of the measure (ver. 2), would 
relate afterward (ver. 3 and ff.), without the least explanation, a fact which has no 
meaning, but on the supposition of the immediate execution of this decree ! 

There remain a number of attempted solutions which rely on history rather than 
philology. As far as the text is concerned, they may be classed with the ordinary 
explanation which treats the words yyeiiovevovToS Kvprjviov as a genitive absolute. 
Several of the older expositors, as Casaubon, Sanclemente, and more recently Hug 
and Neander, starting with the fact that before Quirinius was governor of Syria he 
took a considerable part in the affairs of the East (Tac. Ann. iii. 48), supposed that 
he presided over the census, of which Luke here speaks, in the character of an im- 
perial commissioner. Luke, they think, applied to this temporary jurisdiction the 
term rj-yeuovEvetv, which ordinarily denotes the function of a governor in the proper 
sense of the term. Zumpt even believed he could prove that Quirinius had been 
twice governor of Syria,* in the proper sense of the word, and that it was during the 
former of these two administrations that he presided over the census mentioned by 
Luke. Mommsen f also admits the fact of the double administration of Quirinius as 
governor of Syria. He relies particularly on a tumular inscription discovered in 
17644 which, if it refers to Quirinius, would ?eem to say that this person had been 
governor of Syria on two occasions (iterum). But does this inscription really refer 
to Quirinius ? And has the term iterum all the force which is given to it ? "Wieseler 
clearly shows that these questions are not yet determined with any certainty. And 
supposing even that this double administration of Quirinius could be proved, the 
former, which is the one with which we are concerned here, could not have been, as 
Zumpt acknowledges, until from the end of 750 to 753 u.c. Now it is indisputable 
that at this time Herod had been dead some months (the spring of 750), and conse- 
quently, according to the text of Luke, Jesus was already born. One thing, how- 
ever, is certain — that Quirinius, a person honored with the emperor's entire confi- 
dence, took a considerable part, throughout this entire period, in the affairs of the 
East, and of Syria in particular. And we do not see what objection there is, from a 
historical point of view, to the hypothesis of Gerlach,§ w r ho thinly that, while Varus 
was the political and military governor of Syria (from 748), Quirinius administered 
its financial affairs, and that it was in the capacity of quaestor that he presided over 
the census which took place among the Jews at this time. Josephus (Antiq. xvi. 9. 
1, 2, and Bell. Jud. i. 27. 2) designates these two magistrates, the presses and the 
quasstor, by the titles of vye/ioveS and ttjq LvpiaQ iiuGTarovvTeS. There is nothing, 
then, to hinder our giving a somewhat more general meaning to the verb qyenoveveiv, 
or supposing, we may add, that Luke attributed to Quirinius as governor a function 
which he accomplished as quasstor. In this case Quirinius would have already pre- 
sided over a first enumeration under Herod in 749, before directing the better known 
census which took place in 759 u.c, and which provoked the revolt of Judas the 
Galilean. I v^fc? 

* By the passage in Tac. iii. 48. " De Syria Romanorum provincia ab Caesare 
Augusto ad Titum Vespasianum," 1854, and " Ueber den Cefasus des Quirinius, 
Evang. Kirchenzeitung," 1865, No. 82. 

f " Res gestae Divi Augusti. Ex monumento Ancyrano." 

X Published in the last place by Mommsen, " De P.' S. Quirinii titulo Tiburtino," 
1865. § " Romische Statthalter in Syrien," p. 33. 

|| This certainly is only a hypothesis ; but we do not see what ground Keim has 
for characterizing it as untenable (" Gesch. Jesu," t. i. p. 402). 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 79 

Those who are not satisfied with any of these attempts at explanation admit an 
error in Luke, but not all in the same sense. Meyer thinks that {jye/xoveveiv in Luke's 
text must keep its ordinary meaning, but that Luke, in employing this term here, con- 
founded the later enumeration of the year 6 with that over which this person presided 
ten years earlier in the capacity of imperial commissioner, Schleiermacher and Bleek 
admit a greater error : Luke must have confounded a simple sacerdotal census, which 
took place in the latter part of Herod's reign, with the famous enumeration of the 
year 6. Strauss and Keim go further still. In their view, the enumeration of vers. 
1 and 2 is a pure inventiou of Luke's, either to account for the birth of Jesus at Beth- 
lehem, as required by popular prejudice (Strauss), or to establish a significant parallel 
between the birth of Jesus and the complete subjection of the people (Keim, p. 399). 
But the text of Luke is of a too strictly historical and prosaic character to furnish the 
least support to Keim's opinion. That of Strauss might apply to a Gospel like Mat- 
thew, which lays great stress on the connection between the birth of Jesus at Bethle- 
hem and Messianic prophecy ; but it in no way applies to Luke's Gospel, which does 
not contain the slightest allusion to the prophecy. Schleiermacher's explanation is 
a pure conjecture, and one which borders on absurdity. That of Meyer, which in 
substance is very nearly the opinion of Gerlach, would certainly be the most probable 
of all these opinions. Only there are two facts which hardly allow of our imputing 
to Luke a confusion of facts in this place. The first is, that, according to Acts 
5 : 37, he was well acquainted with the later enumeration which occasioned the re- 
volt of Judas the Galilean, and which he calls, in an absolute way, the enumeration. 
Luke could not be ignorant that this revolt took place on the occasion of the defini- 
tive annexation of Judea to the empire, and consequently at some distance of time 
after the death of Herod. Now, in our text, he places the enumeration of which he 
is speaking in the reign of Herod ! The second fact is the perfect knowledge Luke 
had, according to 23 : 6-9, of the subsequent political separation between Judea and 
Galilee. Now, the registration of a Galilean in Judea supposes that the unity, of the 
Israelitish monarchy was still in existence. In the face of these two plain facts, it is 
not easy to admit that there was any confusion on his part. 

May we be permitted, after so many opinions have been broached, to propose a new 
one ? We have seen that the census which was carried out by Quiriuius in 759 u.c, 
ten years after the birth of Jesus, made a deep impression upon all the people, con- 
vincing them of their complete political servitude. This census is called the enumer- 
ation without any qualification, therefore (Acts 5 : 37) ; but it might also be designated 
the first enumeration, inasmuch as it was the first census executed by pagan authority ; 
and it would be in this somewhat technical sense that the expression % cnroypa^r] -Kpurrj 
would here have to be taken. We should accentuate avrij (as has been already pro- 
posed) avT?j, which presents no critical difficulty, since the ancient mss. have no ac- 
cents, and understand the second verse thus : As to the census itself called the first, 
it took place under the government of Quirinius.* Luke would break off to remark 
that, prior to the well-known enumeration which took place under Quirinius, and 
which history had taken account of under the name of the first, there had really been 
another, generally lost sight of, which was the very one here in question ; and thus 
that it was not unadvisedly that he spoke of a census anterior to the first. In this 

* We spell this name Quirinius (not Quirinus) in conformity with the authority of 
all the documents, B. alone and some mss. of the It. excepted. 



80 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

way, first, the intention of this parenthesis is clear ; second, the asyndeton between 
vers. 1 and 2 is explained quite in a natural way ; and third, the omission of the 
article rj between anoypaibTj and irpuTT], which has the effect of making t] anoypatp?} 
npuTi] a sort of proper name (like f] emaToTif/ ttpcjtt], devripa), is completely justified. 

Vers. 3-7.* The terms ohos and irarpid, house and family (ver. 4), have not an in- 
variable meaning in the LXX. According to the etymology and the context, the 
former appears to have here the wider meaning, and to denote the entire connections 
of David, comprising his brethren and their direct descendants. On this journey of 
Mary, see p. 76. The complement with Mary appears to us to depend, not on the 
verb anoypdipaoQai, to be enrolled, as Meyer, Bleek, etc., decide, but on the entire 
phrase avi$r\ anoypdipaoBai, he went up to be, enrolled, and more, especially on he went 
up. For, as Wieseler observes, the important point for the context is, that she went 
up, not that she was enrolled. And the words in apposition, being great with child, 
connect themselves much better with the idea of going up than with that of being en- 
rolled. There is great delicacy in the received reading, which has also the best sup- 
port critically, his espoused toife. The substantive indicates the character in which 
Mary made the journey ; the participle recalls the real state of things. The Alex., not 
having perceived this shade of thought, have wrongly omitted ywaiKL. From the last 
proposition of ver. 7, in which <j>&TV7}, a manger, seems opposed to KciTuhv/xa, an inn, 
some interpreters have inferred that the former of these two words should here have 
a wider sense, and signify a stable. But this meaning is unexampled. We have 
merely to supply a thought : " in the manger, because they were lodging in the stable 
seeing that . . ." The article ry designates the manger as that belonging to the 
stable. The Alex., therefore, have wrongly omitted it. Did this stable form part of 
the hostelry ? or was it, as all the apocryphal writings f and Justin \ allege, a cave near 
the city ? In the time of Origen,§ a grotto was shown where the birth of Jesu3 took 
place. It was on this place that Helena, the mother of Constantiue, built a church ; 
and it is probable that the Church Ma rise de Pisesepio is erected on the same site. 
The text of Luke would not be altogether incompatible with this idea. But probably 
it is only a supposition, resulting on the one hand from the common custom in the 
East of using caves for stables, and on the other from a mistaken application to the 
Messiah of Isa. 33 : 16, " He shall dwell in a lofty cave," quoted by Justin. The expres- 
sion first-born naturally implies that the writer believtd Mary had other children after- 
ward, otherwise there would be no just ground for the use of this term. It may be 
said that Luke employs it with a view to the account of the presentation of Jesus in 
the temple as a first-born son (ver. 22 et seq.). But this connection is out of the question 
in Matt. 1 : 25. This expression proves that the composition of the narrative dates from 
a time posterior to the birth of the brothers and sisters of Jesus. Thus was accom- 
plished, in the obscurity of a stable, the fact which was to change the face of the 
world ; and Mary's words (1 : 51), " He hath put down the mighty, and exalted the 
lowly," were still further verified. " The weakness of God is stronger than men," 
says St. Paul ; this principle prevails throughout all this history, and constitutes its 
peculiar character. 

* Ver. 3. & c . B. D. L. Z., eavrov instead of tStav. Ver. 5. 8* A. D. some Mnn. 
anoypadeaQat in place of (nzoypaipaoQai; &. B. D. L. Z. some Mnn. Syr. omit yvvaiKc. 
Ver. 7. &. A. B. D. L. Z. some Mnn. omit tj before (j>arvrj. 

f Protevangelium of James, History of Joseph, Gospel of the Infancy. " Works 
of Justin," edit, of Otto, t. i. p. 269, note. 

X " Dial. c. Tryph." c. 78. § " Contra Celsum," i. 11. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 81 

2. The appearing of the angels : vers. 8-14. " The Gospel is preached to the 
poor." The following narrative contains the first application of this divine method. 
Vers. 8 and 9 relate the appearing of the angel to the shepherds ; vers. 10-12, his dis- 
course ; vers. 13 and 14, the song of the heavenly host. 

Vers. 8. and 9.* Among the Jews, the occupation of keepers of sheep was held in 
a sort of contempt. According to the treatise " Sanhedrin," they were not to be ad- 
milted as witnesses ; and according to the treatise " Aboda Zara," succor must not be 
given to shepherds and heathen, 'KypavAsiv, properly, to make his aypbq his avAi), his 
field his abode. Columella (" De re rustica") describes these avlai as inclosures sur- 
rounded by high walls, sometimes covered in, and sometimes sub dio (open to the sky). 
As it is said in a passage in the Talmud that the flocks are kept in the open air during 
the portion of the year between the Passover and the early autumnal rains, it has been 
inferred from this narrative of the shepherds that Jesus must have been born dur- 
ing the summer. Wieseler, however, observes that this Talmudic determination of 
the matter applies to the season passed by the flocks out on the steppes, far away 
from human dwellings. The flocks in this case were not so, In the expression 
$vAdoaei\> qvlaKui . the plural (pv?.anuS perhaps denotes that they watched in turns. 
The genitive r?/S wktos must be taken adverbially : the watch, such as is kept by 
night. 'Wow (ver. 9) is omitted by the Alex. But it is probably authentic ; it de- 
picts the surprise of the shepherds. 'Eitsott} does not signify that the angei stood 
above them (comp. eiriardaa, ver. 38). It is our survenir (to come unexpectedly). 
We must translate, as in 1 : 11, an angel, not .the angel, This is proved by the 
article 6* at ver. 10 (see 1 : 13), By the glory of the Lord must be here understood, as 
generally, the supernatural light with which God appears, whether personally or by 
His representatives. 

Vers. 10-12. f The angel first announces the favorable nature of his message ; 
for at the sight of anv supernatural appearance man's first feeling is fear. "HnS, 
" which, inasmuch as great, i3 intended for the whole people." Ver, 11, the mes- 
sage itself. By the title Saviour, in connection with the idea of joy (ver. 10), is ex- 
pressed the pity angels feel at the sight of the miserable state of mankind. The title 
Christ, anointed, refers to the prophecies which announce this Person, and the long 
expectation He conies to satisfy. The title Lord indicales that He is the representa- 
tive uf the divine sovereignty. This latter title applies also to His relation to the 
angels. The periphrasis, the city of David, hints that this child will be a second 
David. Ver. 12, the sign by means of which the shepherds may determine the truth 
of this message. This sign has nothing divine about it but its contrast with human 
glnry. There could not have been many other children born that night in Bethle- 
hem ; and among these, if there were any, no other certainly would have a manger 
for its cradle. 

Vers. 13 and 144 The troop of angels issues forth all at once from the depths of 
that invisible world which surrounds us on every side. By their song they come to 

* Ver. 9. &. B. L. Z. omit ifiov after k<zi. . & c . Z. It* 11 ''. Vg., Oeov instead of nvpiov 
(secund). &*, eire/M/itpev clvtolS instead of Trepelauwev av-rovS. 

f Ver. 12. B. Z. omit to before otjueiov. &* D. omit kbiusvov. & c B. L. P. S. Z. 
some Mnn. Syr. ItP leri q«« Or. add Km before neifievov (taken from ver. 16). T. R. 
reads rrj before (parvr/, with F 2 . K. only (taken from ver. 16). 

X Ver. 14. ItP leri <i ue lr. Or., etc., omit ev before avdpuKoiS. &* A. B* D. It. Vg. 
lr, and Or. (in the Latin translation) read evdonias in place of evAo/cta. 



82 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

give the key-note of the adoration of mankind. The variation of some Alex, and of 
the Latin translations, which read the gen. evdoicias instead of the nom. evd.o/cia, is 
preferred in the modern exegesis : * " peace to the men of goodwill." In this case 
the song divides itself into two parallel propositions, whether the words and on earth 
be referred to that which precedes, " Glory to God in the highest places and on 
earth ; peace to the men of goodwill ;'•' or, which is certainly preferable, they be 
connected with what follows, *' Glory to God in the highest places ; and on earth 
peace to the men of goodwill," In this second interpretation the parallelism is com- 
plete : the three ideas, peace, men, on earth, in the second member, answer to the 
three ideas, glory, God, in the highest places, in the first Men make their praise 
arise toward God in the heavens ; God makes His peace descend toward them on the 
earth, The gen, evdonlas, of goodwill, may refer to the pious dispositions toward 
God with which a part of mankind are animated. But this interpretation is hardly 
'natural, Evrfo/cm, from evdoneiv, to delight in, n j;£n> denotes an entirely gracious 
goodwill, the initiative of which is in the subject who feels it. This terms does not 
suit the relation of man to God, but only that of God to man. Therefore, with this 
reading, we must explain the words thus; Peace on earth to the men who are the 
objects of divine goodwill. But this use of the genitive is singularly rude, and 
almost barbarous ; the men of goodwill, meaning those on whom goodwill rests, . . . 
is a mode of expression without any example. We are thus brought back to the 
reading of the T, R,, present also in 14 Mjj., among which are L. and Z., which 
generally agree with the Alex., the Coptic translation, of which the same may 
be said, and the Peschito. With this reading, the song consists of three propositions, 
of which two are parallel, and the third forms a link between the two. In the first, 
glory to God in the highest places, the angels demand that, from the lower regions 
to which they have just come down, from the bosom of humanity, praise shall arise, 
which, ascending from heavens to heavens, shall reach at last the supreme sanc- 
tuary, the highest places, and there glorify the divine perfections that shine forth in 
this birth, The second, peace on earth, is the counterpart of the first. While incit- 
ing men to praise, the angels invoke on them peace from God. This peace is such as 
results from the reconciliation of man with God ; it contains' the cause of the cessa- 
tion of all war here below. These two propositions are of the nature of a desire or 
prayer. The verb understood is eorw, let it be. The third, which is not connected 
with the preceding by any particle, proclaims the fact which is the ground of this 
twofold prayer. If the logical connection were expressed, it would be by the word 
for. This fact is the extraordinary favor shown to men by God, and which is dis- 
played in the gift He is bestowing upon them at this very time. The sense is, " for 
God takes pleasure in men." In speaking thus, the angels seem to mean, God has 
not bestowed as much on. us (Heb. 2 : 16). The idea of evdoula, goodwill, recalls the 
first proposition, " Glory to God !" while the expression towards men reminds us of 
the second, " Peace on earth !' : For the word evdonia, comp. Eph. 1:5 and Phil. 
2 : 13. When the witnesses of the blessing sing, how could they who are the objects 
of it remain silent ? 

3. The visit of the shepherds : vers. 15-20. The angel had notified a sign to the 
shepherds, and invited them to ascertain its reality. This injunction they obey. 

* Professor Godet uses this phrase as he elsewhere uses " criticism," and here as 
elsewhere controverts its conclusions. — J. H. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 83 

Vers. 15-20.* The T. R. exhibits in ver. 15 a singular expression: "And it 
came to pass, when the angels were, gone away, . . . the men, the shepherds, 
said . . ." The impression of the shepherds when, the angels having disap- 
peared, they found themselves alone among men, could not be better expressed. 
The omission of the words ml ol uvdpurrot in the Alex, is owing to the strangeness of 
this form, the meaning of which they did not understand. The kg.1 before ol 
avQpuiroi is doubtless the sign of the apociosis, like the Hebrew T ; but at the same 
time it brings out the close connection between the disappearance of the angels and 
the act of the shepherds, as they addressed themselves to the duty of obeying them. 
The aorist eIkov of the T. R. is certainly preferable to the imperf. klulow of the 
Alex., since it refers to an act immediately followed by a result : " They said (not 
they were saying) one to another, Let us go therefore." The term fif/fia denotes, as 
""l^n so often does, a word in so far as accomplished (yeyovds). We see how the orig- 
inal Aramsean form is carefully preserved even to the minutest details. 'Avd in 
dvEvpov expresses the discovery in succession of the objects enumerated. '~Eyv6pi.cav 
or dieyvupioav (Alex.), ver. 17, may signify to verify ; in the fifteenth verse, however, 
tyvupcaav signifies to make known, and in ver. 17 it is the most natural meaning. 
There is a giadation here : heaven had revealed ; and now, by the care of men, pub- 
licity goes on increasing. This sense also puts the seventeenth verse in more direct 
connection with what follows. The compound dtayvopi&iv, to divulge, appears to us 
for this reason to be preferred to the simple foim (in the Alex.), 

Vers. 18-20 describe the various impressions produced by what had taken place. 
In the eighteenth verse, a vague surprise in the greater part (all those who heard). 
On the other hand (6e), ver. 19, a profound impression and exercise of mind in Mary. 
First of all, she is careful to store up all the facts in her mind with a view to preserve 
them {avvTrjpelv) ; but this first and indispensable effort is closely connected with 
the further and subordinate aim of comparing and combining these facts, in order to 
discover the divine idea which explains and connects them. What a difference be- 
tween this thoughtfulness and the superficial astonishment of the people around her ! 
There is more in the joyful feelings and adoration of the shepherds (ver. 20) than in 
the impressions of those who simply heard their story, but less than in Mary. 
Aotdfrtv, to glorify, expresses the feeling of the greatness of the work ; alveiv, to 
praise, refers to the goodness displayed in it. Closely connected as they are, the tw r o 
participles heard and seen can only refer to what took place in the presence of the 
shepherds after they reached the stable. They were told the remarkable occurrences 
that had preceded the birth of Jesus ; it is to this that the word lieard refers. And 
they beheld the manger and the infant ; this is what is expressed by the word seen. 
And the whole was a confirmation of the angel's message to them. They were con- 
vinced that they had not been the victims of an hallucination. The reading vneoTpEipav 
(they returned thence) is evidently to be preferred to the ill-supported reading of the 
T. R., enioTpEipav (they returned to their flocks). 

Whence were these interesting details of the impression made on the shepherds 
and those who listened to their story, and of the feelings of Mary, obtained? How 
can any one regard them as a mere embellishment of the author's imagination, or as 

* Ver. 15. &. B. L. Z. many Mnn. Syr sch . ItP leri( i ue , Vg. Or. omit nat ol avdpunoi. 
8. B. It atI< i., slalovv instead of sinov. Ver. 17. &. B. D. L. Z., eyvupioav instead of 
tiuyvopicav. Ver. 20. Instead of ettectpetPciv, the reading of T. R. and a part of the 
Mnn. . all the other documents, vir£GTp£il>av. • 



84 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

the offspring of legend ? The Aramaean coloring of the narrative indicates an ancient 
source. The oftener we read the nineteenth verse, the more assured we feel that 
Mary was the first and real author of this whole narrative. This pure, simple, and 
private history was composed by her, and preserved for a certain time in an oral 
form until some one committed it to writing, whose work fell into the hands of 
Luke, and was reproduced by him in Greek. 



SIXTH NARRATIVE. — CHAP. 2 : 21-40. 

Circumcision and Presentation of Jesus. 

This narrative comprises — 1. The circumcision of Jesus (ver. 21) : 2. His presen- 
tation in the temple (vers. 22-38) ; 3. A historical conclusion (vers. 39, 40). 

1. The circumcision : ver. 21. It was under the Jewish form that Jesus was to 
realize the ideal of human existence. The theocracy was the surrounding prepared 
of God for the development of the Son of man. So to His entrance into life by birth 
succeeds, eight days after, His entrance into the covenant by circumcision. " Born 
of a woman, made under the law," says St. Paul, Gal. 4 : 4. to exhibit the connection 
between these two facts. There is a brevity in the account of the circumcision of 
Jesus which contrasts with the fuller account of the circumcision of John the Baptist 
(chap. 1). This difference is natural ; the simply Jewish ceremony of circumcision 
has an importance, in the life of the latest representative of the theocracy, which 
does not belong to it in the life of Jesus, who only entered into the Jewish form of 
existence to pass through it. 

Ver. 21.* The absence of the article before 7jfj.epat 6kt6 is due to the determinative 
rov TepiTe/uetv avrdv which follows. In Hebrew the construct state (subst. with corrf- 
plemenl) excludes the article. The false reading of the T. R., to naidiov instead of 
avrov, proceeds from the cause which has occasioned the greater part of the errors in 
this text, the necessities of public reading. As the section to be read began with this 
verse, it was necessary to substitute the noun for the pronoun. Kai, while maiking 
the apodosis, brings out the intimate connection between the circumcision and the 
giving of the name. This Kai is almost a tote, then. 

2. The presentation : vers. 22-38. And first the sacrifice, vers. 22-24. f After 
the circumcision there were two other rites to observe. One concerned the mother. 
Levitically unclean for eight days after the birth of a son, and for fourteen days 
after that of a daughter, the Israelitish mother, after a seclusion of thirty-three days 
in the first case, and of double this t'me in the second, had to offer in the temple a 
sacrifice of purification (Lev. 12). The other rite had reference to the child ; when 
it was a first-born, it had to be redeemed by a sum of money from consecration to the 
service of God and the sanctuary. In fact, the tribe of Levi had been chosen for this 
office simply to take the place of the first-born males of all the families of Israel ; and 
in order to keep alive a feeling of His rights in the hearts of the people, God had 
fixed a ransom to be paid for every first-born male. It was five shekels, or, reckon- 

* 2*. A. B. and 11 Mjj. 100 Mnn. ltP leri i n e read avrov in place of to naidiov, the 
reading of T. R. with 6 Mjj. Syr sch . 

f Ver. 22. Instead of avir)<;, which is the reading of T. R. with only some Mnn., 
and of avrov, which is the reading of D. and 6 Mnn., all the other authorities read 
avTuv, 



COMMENTAKY OK ST. LUKE. 85 

ing the shekel at 2s. 4d.* nearly 12s. (Ex. 13 : 2 ; Num. 8 : 16, 18 : 15). Vers. 22 and 
23 refer to the ransom of the child ; ver. 24 to Mary's sacrifice. Avrtiv, their puri- 
fication, is certainly the true reading. This pronoun refers primarily to Mary, then 
to Joseph, who is, as it were, involved in her uncleanness, and obliged to go up with 
her. Every detail of the narrative is justified with the greatest care in the three 
verses by a legal prescription. The sacrifice for the mother (ver. 24) consisted prop- 
erly of the offering of a lamb as a sin-offering. But when the family was poor, the 
offering was limited to a pair of pigeons or two turtle-doves (Lev. 12 : 8). 

From the twenty-fifth verse Simeon becomes the centre of the picture : vers. 
25-28 relate his coming in ; vers. 29-32, his song ; vers. 33-35, his address to the 
parents. 

Vers. 25-28. f In times of spiritual degeneracy, when an official clergy no longer 
cultivates anything but the form of religion, its spirit retires among the obscurer 
members of the religious community, and creates for itself unofficial organs, often 
from the lowest classes. Simeon and Anna are representatives of this spontaneous 
priesthood. It has been conjectured that Simeon might be the rabbi of this name, 
son of the famous Hillel, and father of Gamaliel. But this Simeon, who became 
president of the Sanhedrim in the year 13 of our era, could hardly be the one men- 
tioned by Luke, who at the birth of Jesus was already an old man. Further, this 
conjecture is scarcely compatible with the religious character of Luke's Simeon. 
The name was one of the commonest in Israel. The term just denotes positive qual- 
ities ; fearing God — A. V. devout (evhapfc appears to be the true reading) — watch- 
fulness with regard to evil. The separation of nvevjua from dytov by the verb riv in 
the greater part of the mss. gives prominence to the idea of the adjective. An influ- 
ence rested upon him, and this influence was holy. Xprj/xaTiCeiv, properly, to do busi- 
ness ; thence, to act officially, communicate a decision, give forth an oracle. The 
reading icvpiov has neither probability nor authority ; nvplov is the genitive of posses- 
sion : the Christ whom Jehovah gives and sends. There are critical moments in life, 
when everything depends on immediate submission to the impulse of the Spirit. The 
words kv t£) TcvEVfiari, in sjnrit, or by the spirit, do not denote a state of ecstasy, but a 
higher impulse. A contradiction has been found between the term yoveK, parents, 
and the preceding narrative of the miraculous birth ; and Meyer finds in this fact a 
proof that Luke avails himself here of a different document from that which he pre- 
viously used. AVhat criticism ! The word parents is simply used to indicate the 
character in which Joseph and Mary appeared at this time in the temple and pre- 
sented the child. The icai of the twenty-eighth verse indicates the apodosis ; exactly 
as if the circumstantial ev r& ehayayelv . . . formed a subordinate proposition ; 
this Hal, at the same time, brings out the close connection between the act of the 
parents who present the child and that of Simeon, who is found there opening his 
arms to receive it. By the term receive, the text makes Simeon the true priest, who 
acts for the time on behalf of God. 

Vers. 29-32. " Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to 

* Meylau, " Dictionnaire Biblique," p. 353. 

t Ver. 25. &* K. r. n. 10 Mnn. read evoePtjS instead of evZaSyS. Ayiov is placed 
after rjv by &. A. B. L. and 14 other Mjj. and almost all the Mnu., while the T. R. 
places it before yv, with D. some Mnn. ItP le »q«% Syr. Ver. 26. Instead of nptv v, & c . 
B. and 4 Mjj., npiv rj av. ; 8* e., e«5 av. Instead of Kvpiov, A b. c Cop., nvpiov. 
Ver. 28. &. B. L. II. It ftli( i. Ir. omit avrov after ay K a7.ar. 



86 COMMEKTAKY ON ST. LUKE, 

Thy word : 30 For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, 31 Which Thou hast prepared 
before the face of all people ; 32 A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy 
people Israel." 

The vivid insight and energetic conciseness which characterize this song remind 
us of the compositions of David. Simeon represents himself under the image of a 
sentinel whom his master has placed in an elevated position, and charged to look for 
the appearance of a star, and then announce it to the world. He sees this long-de- 
sired star ; he proclaims its rising, and asks * to be relieved of the post he has occu- 
pied so long. In the same way, at the opening of ^schylus' " Agamemnon," when 
the sentinel, set to watch for the appearing of the fire that is to announce the taking 
of Troy, beholds at last the signal so impatiently expected, he sings at once both 
the victory of Greece and his own release. Beneath each of these terms in ver. 29 is 
found the figure which we have just indicated : vvv, now, that is to say, at last, after 
such long waiting ! The word cltzoUelv, to release, discharge, contains the two ideas 
of relieving a sentinel on duty, and delivering from the burden of life. These two 
ideas are mixed up together here, because for a long time past Simeon's earthly ex- 
istence had been prolonged simply in view of this special mandate. The term 
cJtwora, lord, expresses Simeon's acknowledgment of God's absolute right over him. 
'Ptjfid aov, Thy word, is an allusion to the word of command which the commander 
gives to the sentinel. The expression, in peace, answers to the word now, with which 
the song begins. This soul, which for a long time past has been all expectation, has 
now found the satisfaction it desired, and can depart from earth in perfect peace. 

Vers. 30 and 31 form, as it were, a second strophe. Simeon is now free. For his 
eyes have seen. The term ourrjpiov, which we can only translate by salvation, is 
equivalent neither to cur^p, Saviour, nor to ourrjpla, salvation. This word, the neuter 
of the adjective outtjplos, saving, denotes an apparatus fitted to save. Simeon sees in 
this little child the means of deliverance which God is giving to the world. The 
term prepare is connected with this sense of auTqpiov : we make ready an apparatus. 
This notion of preparation may be applied to the entire theocracy, by which God had 
for a long time past been preparing for the appearance of the Messiah. But it is 
simpler to apply this term to the birth of the infant. The complement, in tlie sight 
of, must be explained in this case by an intermediate idea, " Thou hast prepared this 
means for placing before the eyes of . . ." that is to say, in order that all may 
have the advantage of it. It is a similar expression to that of Ps. 23 : 5, " Thou hast 
prepared a table before me." Perhaps this expression, in t?te sight of all nations, is 
connected with the fact that this scene took place in the court of the Gentiles. The 
universalism contained in these words, all nations, in no way goes beyond the hori- 
zon of the prophets, of Isaiah in particular (Isa. 42 : 6, 60 : 3) ; it is perfectly appro- 
priate in the mouth of a man like Simeon, to whom the prophetic spirit is attributed. 

The collective idea, all people, is divided, in the third strophe, into its two essential 
elements, the Gentiles and Israel. From Genesis to Revelation this is the great dual- 
ism of history, the contrast which determines its phases. The Gentiles are here 
placed first. Did Simeon already perceive that the salvation of the Jews could only 
be realized after the enlightenment of the heathen, and by this means ? We shall see 
what a profound insight this old man had into the moral condition of the generation 

* There does not appear to be any good reason for making the words now lettest a 
prayer. The whole hymn is praise. He accepts this sight as sign of his release : 
now thou art letting. — J. H. 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 87 

in which he lived. Guided by all that Isaiah had foretold respecting the future un- 
belief of Israel, he might have arrived at the conviction that his people were about 
to reject the Messiah (ver. 35). The idea of salvation is presented under two different 
aspects, according as it is applied to the heathen or to the Jews. To the first this 
chi'd brings light, to the second glory. The heathen, in fact, are sunk in ignorance. 
In Isa. 25 : 7 they are represented as enveloped in a thick mist, and covered with 
darkness. This covering is/taken away by the Messiah. The genitive eQv£>v may be 
regarded as a genitive of the subject, the enlightenment which the heathen receive. 
The heathen might also be made the object of the enlightenment, the light whereby 
the covering which keeps them in darkness is done away, and they themselves are 
brought into open day. But this second sense is somewhat forced. While the 
ignorant heathen receive in this child the light of divine revelation, of which they 
have hitherto been deprived, the humiliated Jews are delivered by Him from their re- 
proach, and obtain the glory which was promised them. Springing from among 
them, Jesus appears their crown in the eyes of mankind. But this will be at the end, 
not at the commencement of the Messianic drama. In this song all is original, con- 
cise, enigmatical even, as the words of an oracle. In these brief pregnant sentences 
is contained the substance of the history of future ages. Neither the hackneyed in- 
ventions of legend, nor any preconceived dogmatic views, have any share in the com- 
position of this joyous lyric. 

Vers. 33-35.* A carnal satisfaction, full of delusive hopes, might easily have 
taken possession of the hearts of these parents, especially of the mother's, on hearing 
such words as these. But Simeon infuses into his message the drop of bitterness 
which no joy, not even holy joy, ever wants in a world of sin. Instead of Joseph, 
which is the reading of T. R., the Alex, read : his father. We should have thought 
that the former of these two readings was a dogmatic correction, but that at ver. 27 
the T. R. itself reads the word yovels, parents. But the Alexandrian reading is sup- 
ported by the fact that the ancient translations, the Peschito and Italic, have it. 
Strauss finds something strange in the wonder of Joseph and Mary. Did they not 
already know all this V But in the first place, what Simeon has just said of the part 
this child would sustain toward the heathen goes beyond all that had hitherto been 
told them. And then especially, they might well be astonished to hear an unknown 
person, like Simeon, express himself about this child as a man completely initiated 
into the secret of His high destiny. 

In the expression, he blessed them, ver. 34, the word them refers solely to the 
parents : the child is expressly distinguished from them (this child). Simeon ad- 
dresses himself specially to Mary, as if he had discerned that a peculiar tie united her 
to the child. 'Idov, behold, announces the revelation of an unexpected truth. In lsa. 
8 : 14 the Messiah is represented as a rock on which believers find refuge, but where- 
on the rebellious are broken. Simeon, whose prophetic gift was developed under the 
influence of the ancient oracles, simply reproduces here this thought. The words, is 
set for, make it clear that this sifting, of which the Messiah will be the occasion, 
forms part of the divine plan. The images of a fall and a rising again are explained 
by that employed by Isaiah. The expression, signal of contradiction (a sign which 

* Ver. 33. &. B. D. L. some Mnn., o irarrjp avrov mi rj wn T VP avrov, instead of 
lucetp kcu rj fi7]TTjp avrov, which is the reading of T. R. with 13 Mjj., the greater part 
of the Mnn. Syr. It. Ver. 35. B. L. Z. omit 6e after gov, &* adds nov7jpoi after 
6ia7ioyia/Lcoi. 



88 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

shall be spoken against, A. V.), may be understood in two ways : either it is an ap- 
pearing about which men argue contradictorily, or it is a sign which excites oppo- 
sition directly it appears. Taken in the first sense, this expression would reproduce 
the ideas of a fall and a rising again, and would be a simple repetition of that which 
precedes ; in the second sense, it would merely recall the idea of a fall, and would 
form the transition to what follows. Will not the general unbelief of the nation be 
the cause of the sad lot of the Messiah, and of the sufferings that will fill the heart of 
His mother ? The second sense is therefore preferable. The gradation icai aov d£ 
avT7}$, thy own also, ver. 35, is in this way readily understood. The <5e of the received 
reading is well suited to the context. " The opposition excited by this child will go 
so far, that thine own heart will be pierced by it." It is natural to refer what follows 
to the grief of Mary, when she shall behold the rejection and murder of her son. 
Some such words as those of Isaiah, " He was bruised for our iniquities," and of 
Zechariah, " They shall look on me whom they have pierced," had enlightened 
Simeon respecting this mystery. Bleek has proposed another explanation, which is 
less natural, although ingenious : " Thou shalt feel in thine own heart this contra- 
diction in regard to thy son, when thou thyself shalt be seized with doubt in regard 
to His mission." But the image of a sword must denote something more violent than 
simple doubt, "ivxv, the soul, as the seat of the psychical affections, and consequently 
of maternal love. It has been thought that the following proposition, in order that 
the thoughts of many . . . could not be connected with that which immediately 
precedes ; and for this reason some have tried to treat it as a parenthesis, and connect 
the in order that with the idea, This is set . . . (ver. 34). But this violent con- 
struction is altogether unnecessary. The hatred of which Jesus will be the object 
(ver. 34), and which will pierce the heart of Mary with poignant grief (ver. 35), will 
bring out those hostile thoughts toward God which in this people lie hidden under a 
veil of pharisaical devotion. Simeon discerned, beneath the outward forms of Jew- 
ish piety, their love of human glory, their hypocrisy, avarice, and hatred of God ; and 
he perceives that this child will prove the occasion for all this hidden venom being 
poured forth from the recesses of their hearts. In order that has the same sense as is 
set for. God does not will the evil ; but he wills that the evil, when present, should 
show itself : this is an indispensable condition to its being either healed or con- 
demned. TloTCXtiv, of many, appears to be a pronoun, the complement of tcapfiitiv (the 
hearts of many) rather than an adjective (of many hearts) ; comp. Rom. 5 : 16. The 
term 6ia2,oytajuoi, thoughts, has usually an unfavorable signification in the N. T. ; it 
indicates the uneasy working of the understanding in the service of a bad heart. The 
epithet irovtipol, added by the Sinaiticus, is consequently superfluous. These words 
of Simeon breathe a concentrated indignation. We feel that this old man knows 
more about the moral condition of the people and their rulers than he has a mind to 
tell. 

Vers. 36-38.* Anna presents, in several respects, a contrast to, Simeon. The 
latter came into the temple impelled by the Spirit ; Anna lives there. Simeon has 

* Ver. 37. ». A. B. L. Z. It ali *., e«S instead of wS. &*, s^dofirjKovTa instead of 
oydoriKovra. The Alex, omit awo tov tepov. Ver. 38. 9 Mjj. (Alex.) some Mnn., mi 
avT7j TTj, instead of nai avrrj avrij ttj. A. B. D. L. X. Z., rw Qeu, instead of rw Kvpio, 
the reading of T. R with 14 Mjj. all the Mnn. Syr. ltP leri i« e . &. B. Z. some Mnn. 
l t pieriqu e> Sy r sch # j r om ^ ev between Ivrpuaiv and lepovaa2.7jfi, which is the reading of 
T. R. ? with 15 Mjj., the greater part of the Mnft., etc, 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 89 

no desire but to die ; Anna seems to recover the vigor of youth to celebrate the Mes- 
siah. The words rj ovk cupiararo (ver. 37) might be made the predicate of yv, and the 
two avTTj which separate them, two appositions of 'Aw, But it is simpler to under- 
stand tjv in the sense of there was, or there was there, and to regard v ovk ayioTaro as 
an appendix intended to bring back the narrative from the description of Anna's per- 
son to the actual fact. Meyer, who understands ?jv in the same way, begins a fresh 
proposition with the avTij which immediately follows, and assigns to it dvQu/.io2.oyeiTo 
for its verb (ver. 38). This construction is less natural, especially on account of the 
intermediate clauses (ver. 37). Ilpof3e(3iiKvla kv is a Hebraism (especially with TroMaZs), 
1 : 7. The moral purity of Anna is expressed by the term irapdevia, virginity, and by 
the long duration of her widowhood. Do the 84 years date from her birth, or from 
the death of her husband V In the latter case, supposing that she was married at 15, 
she would have been 106 years old. This sense is not impossible, and it more easily 
accounts perhaps for such a precise reckoning. Instead of wS, about, the Alex, read 
i ; ws, until, a reading which appears preferable ; for the restriction about would only 
be admissible with a round number — 80, for example. Did Anna go into the 
temple in the morning, to spend the whole day there ? or did she remain there dur- 
ing the night, spreading her poor pallet somewhere in the court ? Luke's expression 
is compatible wit^h either supposition, What he means is, that she was dead to the 
outer world, and only lived for the service of God, "We could not, with Tischendorf, 
following tjhe Alex., erase one of the two avrq (ver. 38), Both can be perfectly ac- 
counted for, and the omission is easily explained by the repetition of the word, 
'Avti, in the compound avdu/xoAoyelro, might refer to a kind of antiphony between 
Anna and Simeon. But in the LXX. this compound verb corresponds simply to rHMl 
(Ps. 79 : 13) ; avrl only expresses, therefore, the idea of payment in acknowledgment 
which is inherent in an act of thanksgiving (as in the French word reconnaissance), 
The Alex, reading tgj Qeti, to God, is probably a correction, arising from the fact that 
in the O. T. the verb avQufioloyelaQai never governs anything but God, It is less 
natural to regard the received reading as resulting from the pronoun avrov, Sim, which 
follows. We need not refer the irnperf,, she spake, merely to the time then present ; 
she was doing it continually. The reading of some Alex., " those who were looking 
for the deliverance of J erusalem, " is evidently a mistaken imitation of the expression. 
the consolation of Israel (ver. 25). The words, in Jerusalem, naturally depend on the 
participle, that looked for, The people were divided into three parties. The Pharisees 
expected an outward triumph from the Messiah ; the Sadducees expected nothing ; 
between them were the true faithful, who expected the consolntion, that is, deliver- 
ance. It was these last, who, according to EzekieFs expression (chap. 9), cried for 
all the abominations of Jerusalem, that were represented by Anna and Simeon ; and 
it was among these that Anna devoted herself to the ministry of an evangelist. If 
Luke had sought, as is supposed, occasions for practising his muse, by inventing 
personages for his hymns, and hymns for his personages, how came he to omit here 
to put a song into the mouth of Anna, as a counterpart to Simeon's ? 

3. Historical conclusion : vers. 39, 40.* It is a characteristic feature of Luke's 
narrative, and one which is preserved throughout, that he exhibits the various actors 

* Ver. 39. Some Alex., -navra instead of anavja. Others, Kara instead of 
ra Kara. &. B. Z., ETzearpeipav instead of wrreoTpetyav. Ver. 40. J*. B. D. L. ItP leil i ne , 
Vg. Or., omit irvevfiari after eKparaiovro, which is the reading of T. R., with 14 Mjj., 
all the Mnn, Syr. It ali( i. tt c . B. L., oo<j>ta instead of oo<j>ias. 



90 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

in the evangelical drama as observing a scrupulous fidelity to the law (1 : 6, 2 : 22-24, 
23:56). It is easy also to understand why Marcion, the opponent of the law, felt 
obliged to mutilate this writing in order to adapt it to his system. But what is less 
conceivable is, that several critics should find in such a Gospel the monument of a 
tendency systematically opposed to Jewish Christianity. The fact is, that in it the 
law always holds the place which according to history it ought to occupy. It is un- 
der its safeguard that the transition from the old covenant to the new is gradually 
effected. It is easy to perceive that ver. 39 has a religious rather than a chronolog- 
ical reference. " They returned to Nazareth only after having fulfilled every pre- 
scription of the law, " Ver. 40 contains a short sketch of the childhood of Jesus, 
answering to the similar sketch, 1 : 66, of that of John tbe Baptist. It is probably 
from this analogous passage that the gloss ttvsvjuciti, in spirit, has been derived. It is 
wanting in the principal Alex, and Grseco-Latin documents. The expression He grew 
refers to His physical development. The next words, He waxed strong, are defined 
by the words being filled, or more literally, filling Himself with wisdom ; they refer to 
His spiritual, intellectual, and religious development. The wisdom which formed 
the leading feature of this development (in John the Baptist it was strength) com- 
prises, on the one hand, the knowledge of God ; on the other, a penetrating under- 
standing of men and things from a divine point of view. The im#ge {filling Himself 
appears to be that of a vessel, which, while increasing in size, fills itself, and, by fill- 
ing itself, enlarges so as to be continually holding more. It is plain that Luke re- 
gards the development, and consequently the humanity, of Jesus as a reality. Here 
* we have the normal growth of man from a physical and moral point of view. It was 
accomplished for the first time on our earth. God therefore regarded this child with 
perfect satisfaction, because His creative idea was realized in Him. This is ex- 
pressed by the last clause of the verse. XdpiS, the divine favor. This word contrasts 
with x £ ty* the hand, 1 : 66. The accus. £tt' avrb marks the energy with which the 
grace of God rested on the child, penetrating His entire being. This government 
contrasts with that of 1 : QQ, fier' avrov, which only expresses simple co-operation. 
This description is partly taken from that of the young Samuel (1 Sam. 2 : 26) ; only 
Luke omits here the idea of human favor, which he reserves for ver. 52, where he 
describes the young man. Let anyone compare this description, in its exquisite 
sobriety, with the narratives of the infancy of Jesus in the apocryphal writings, and 
he will feel how authentic the tradition must have been from which such a narrative 
as this was derived. 

SEVENTH NARRATIVE. — CHAP. 2 : 41-52. . 

2 he Child Jesus at Jerusalem. 

The following incident, the only one which the historian relates about the youth of 
Jesus, is an instance of that wisdom which marked His development, Almost all 
great men have some story told about their childhood, in which their future destiny 
is foreshadowed. Here we have the first glimpse of the spiritual greatness Jesus ex- 
hibited in His ministry. Three facts : 1. The separation (vers. 41-45) ; 2. The re- 
union (vers. 46-50) ; 8. The residence at Nazareth (vers. 51, 52). 

1. The separation : vers. 41-45.* The idea of fidelity to the law is prominent 

* Ver. 41. &*, eBo$ instead of eroS. Ver. 42. J*. A. B. K. L. X. II, avapcuvovrov 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 91 

Also in this narrative. According to Ex. 23 : 17, Deut. 16 : 16, men were 
to present themselves at the sanctuary at the three feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and 
Tabernacles. There was no such obligation for women. But the school of Hillel 
required them to make at least the Passover pilgrimage. The term yovel<=>, parents, is 
found at ver. 41 in all the mss., even in those in which it does not occur at vers. 27 
and 43, which proves that in these passages it was not altered with any dogmatic de- 
sign. Ver, 42. It was at the age of twelve that the young Jew began to be re- 
sponsible for legal observances, and to receive religious instruction ; he became then 
a son of the law. The partic. pres. of the Alex, reading, avafiuivovTuv, must be pre- 
ferred to the aor. partic. of the T. R., avaftavruv. The present expresses a habit ; 
the aor. is a correction suggested by the aor. partic. which follows. The words en; 
'lepoooAvfia should be erased, according to the Alex, reading, which evidently deserves 
the preference. It is a gloss easily accounted for. The words, after the custom of 
t?ie feast, perhaps allude to the custom of going up in caravans. Jesus spent these 
seven days of the feast in holy delight. Every rite spoke a divine language to His 
pure heart ; and His quick understanding gradually discovered their typical meaning. 
This serves to explain the following incident. An indication of wilful and deliberate 
disobedience has been found in the term vne/j.eiu£v, He abode. Nothing could be fur- 
ther from the historian's intention (ver. 51). The notion of perseverance contained in 
this verb alludes 'simply to Jesus' love for the temple, and all that took place there. 
It was owing to this that, on the day for leaving, He found Himself unintentionally 
separated from the band of children to which He belonged. When once left behind, 
where was He to go in this strange city ? The home of a child is the house of his 
father. Very naturally, therefore, Jesus sought His in the temple. There He un- 
derwent an experience resembling Jacob's (Gen. 28). In His solitude, He learned to 
know God more familiarly as His Father. Is not the freshuess of a quite recent in- 
tuition perceptible in His answer (ver. 49) ? The Alex, reading ol yovel s has against 
it, besides the Alex. A. and C, the Italic and Peschito translations. It was only in 
the evening, at the hour of encampment, when every family was gathered together 
for the night, that the absence of the child was perceived. When we think of the 
age of Jesus, and of the unusual confidence which such a child must have enjoyed, 
the conduct of His parents in this affair presents nothing unaccountable. The par- 
tic. pres. seeking Him (ver. 45) appears to indicate that they searched for Him on the 
road while returning. 

2. The meeting : vers. 46-50.* As it is improbable that they had sought for 
Jesus for two or three days without going to the temple, the three days must certainly 
date from the time of separation. The first was occupied with the journey, the 
second with the return, and the third with the meeting. Lightfoot, following the 
Talmud, mentions three synagogues within the temple inclosure : one at the gate 
of the court of the Gentiles ; another at the entrance of the court of the Israelites ; a 
third in the famous peristyle lischdhat Jiagasith, in the S. E. part of the inner court, f 

instead of avaf3avTuv. &. B. D. L. some Mnn. Syr scb . omit etc lepoaolvfia. Ver. 43. 
& B. D. L. some Mnn. read eyvuoav oi yoveic avrov instead of eyvu Iuoe<p mi tj jutjttjp 
avrov. Ver. 45. &. B. C. D. L. some Mnn. omit avrov. J8 C . B. C. D. L., avaC^rovvrec 
instead of fyrowrss. 

* Ver. 48. &* B. fyrovfiev instead of e&tovjiev. Ver. 49. &* b. Syr 00 *, fyrEire in- 
stead of e&rsire. 

f Hor. hebr. ad Luc. ii. 46 (after Sanhedr. xi. 2). 



92 COMMENTARY Oft ST. LIJKE. 

It was there that the Rabbins explained the law. Desire for instruction led Jesus 
thither. The following narrative in no way attributes to Him the part of a doctor. 
In order to find support for this sense in opposition to the text, some critics have 
alleged the detail : seated in the midst of the doctors. The disciples, it is said, 
listened around. This opinion has been refuted by Vitringa ; * and Paul's expres- 
sion (Acts 22 : 3), seated at the feet of Gamaliel, would be sufficient to prove the con- 
trary. Nevertheless the expression, seated in the midst of the doctors, proves no 
doubt that the child was for the time occupying a place of honor. As the Rabbinical 
method of teaching was by questions — by proposing, for example, a problem taken 
from the law — both master and disciples had an opportunity of showing their 
sagacity. Jesus had given some remarkable answer, or put some original question ; 
and, as is the case when a particularly intelligent pupil presents himself, He had at- 
tracted for the moment all the interest of His teachers. There is nothing in the nar- 
rative, when rightly understood, that savors in the least of an apotheosis of Jesus. 
The expressions, hearing them, and asking them questions^ bear in a precisely opposite 
direction. Josephus, in his autobiography (c. i.), mentions a very similar fact re- 
specting his own youth. When he was only fourteen years of age, the priests and 
eminent men of Jerusalem came to question him on the explanation of the law. The 
apocryphal writings make Jesus on this occasion a professor possessing omniscience. f 
There we have the legend grafted on the fact so simply related by the evangelist. 
HvveoiS, understanding, is the personal quality of which the answers, diroKpioeiS, 
are the manifestations. The surprise of His parents proves that Jesus habitually 
observed a humble reserve. There is a slight tone of reproach in the words of Mary. 
She probably wished to justify herself for the apparent negligence of which she was 
guilty. Criticism is surprised at the uneasiness expressed by Mary ; did she not 
know who this child was ? Criticism reasons as if the human heart worked accord- 
ing to logic. To the indirect reproach of Mary, Jesus replies in such words as she 
had never heard from Him before : Wherefore did ye seek me? He does not mean, 
" You could very well leave me at Jerusalem." The literal translation is, "What 
is it, that you sought me ?" And the implied answer is, " To seek for me thus was 
an inadvertence on your part. It should have occurred to you at once that you would 
find me here." The sequel explains why. The phrase ri 6 n is found in Acts 5 : 9. 
Ova rjdziTE, did ye not know ? not, do ye not know ? X ne expression rd rod narpog 
jxov may, according to Greek usage, have either a local meaning, the house of, or a 
moral, the affairs of The former sense is required by the idea of seeking ; and if, 
nevertheless, we are disposed to adopt the latter as wider, the first must be included 
in it. " Where my Father's affairs are carried on, there you are sure to find me." 
The expression my Father is dictated to the child by the situation : a child is to be 
found at his father's. We may add that He could not, without impropriety, have 
said God's, instead of my Father's ; for this would have been to exhibit in a preten- 
tious and affected way the entirely religious character of His ordinary thoughts, and 

* Synag. p. 167. 

f In the Gospel of Thomas (belonging to the second century ; known to Irenaeus), 
Jesus, when on the road to Nazareth, returns of His own accord to Jerusalem ; the 
doctors are stupefied with wonder at hearing Him solve the most difficult questions 
of the law and the prophecies. In an Arabic Gospel (of later date than the preced- 
ing), Jesus instructs the astronomers in the mysteries of the celestial spheres, and 
reveals to the philosophers the secrets of metaphysics. 



COMMENTAKY ON" ST. LUKE. 93 

to put Himself forward as a little saint. Lastly, does not this expression contain a 
delicate but decisive reply to Mary's words, Thy Father and I? Any allusion to the 
Trinitarian relation must, of course, be excluded from the meaning of this saying. 
But, on the other hand, can the simple notion of moral paternity suffice to express 
its meaning ? Had not Jesus, during those days of isolation, by meditating anew 
upon the intimacy of His moral relations with God, been brought to regard Him as 
the sole author of His existence ? And was not this the cause of the kind of shudder 
which He felt at hearing from Mary's lips the word Thy father, to which He imme- 
diately replies with a certain ardor of expression, my Father? That Mary and Joseph 
should not have been able to understand this speech appears inexplicable to certain 
critics — to Meyer, for instance, and to Strauss, who infers from this detail that the 
whole story is untrue. But this word, my Father, was the first revelation of a re- 
lation Which surpassed all that Judaism had realized ; and the expression, "to be 
about the business" of this Father, expressed the ideal of a completely filial life, cf 
an existence entirely devoted to God and divine things, which perhaps at this very 
time had just arisen in the mind of Jesus, and which we could no more understand 
than Mary and Joseph, if the life of Jesus had never come before us. It was only by 
the light Mary received afterward from the ministry of her Son, that she could say 
what is here expressed : that she did not understand this saying at the time. Does 
not the original source of this narrative discover itself in this remark ? From whom 
else could it emanate, but from Mary herself ? 

3. The residence at Nazareth : vers. 51, 52.* From this moment Jesus possesses 
within Him this ideal of a life entirely devoted to the kingdom of God, which had 
just flashed before His eyes. For eighteen years He applied Himself in silence to the 
business of His earthly father at Nazareth, where He is called the carpenter (Mark 
6 : 3). The analytical form tjv viroraaaofievoi indicates the permanence of this sub- 
mission ; and the pres. partic. mid., submitting Himself, its spontaneous and delib- 
erate character. In this simple word, submitting Himself Luke has summed up the 
entire work of Jesus until His baptism. But why did not God permit the child to 
remain in the temple of Jerusalem, which during the feast-days had been His Eden ? 
The answer is nut difficult. He must inevitably have been thrown too early into the 
theologico-political discussions which agitated the capital ; and after having excited 
the admiration of the doctors, He would have provoked their hatred by His original 
and independent turn of thought. If the spiritual atmosphere of Nazareth was heavy, 
it was at least calm ; and the labors of the workshop, in the retirement of this peaceful 
valley, under the eye of the father, was a more favorable sphere for the development 
of Jesus than the ritualism of the temple and the Rabbinical discussions of Jerusalem. 
The remark at the end of ver. 51 is similar to that at ver. 19 ; only for the verb awry- 
petv, which denoted the grouping of a great number of circumstances, to collect and 
combine them, Luke substitutes here another compound dtar^pelv. This dia denotes 
the permanence of , the recollection, notwithstanding circumstances which might 
have effaced it, particularly the inability to understand recorded in^ver. 50. She 
carefully kept in her possession this profound saying as an unexplained mystery. The 
fifty-second verse describes the 3' - outh of Jesus, as the fortieth verse had depicted His 
childhood ; and these two brief sketches correspond with the two analogous pictures 

* Ver. 51. The mss. and Yss. are divided between nat tj jutjtvp and i? 6e fnjTijp. &* 
B. D. M. omit rav-a. Ver. 52. &. L. add ev tij, B. ev, before aofia, D. L. Syr. 

Xtplerique pfc lce ^(/fW before OOdta. 



94 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

of John the Baptist (1 : 66, 80). Each of these general remarks, if it stood alone 
might be regarded, as Schleiermacher has suggested, as the close of a small docu- 
ment. But their relation to each other, and their periodical recurrence, demonstrate 
the unity of our writing. This form is met with again in the book of the Acts. 
'HTuiua does not here denote age, which would yield no meaning at all, but height, 
stature, just as 19 : 3. This term embraces the entire physical development, all the 
external advantages ; oo<f>ia, wisdom, refers to the intellectual and moral development. 
The third term, favor with God and men, completes the other two\ Over the person 
of this young man there was spread a charm at once external and spiritual ; it pro- 
ceeded from the favor of God, and conciliated toward Him the favor of men. This 
perfectly normal human being was the beginning o«f a reconciliation between heaven 
and earth. The term wisdom refers rather to with God ; the word stature to with 
men. The last words, with men, establish a contrast between Jesus and 'John the 
Baptist, who at this very time was growing up in the solitude, of the desert ; and this 
contrast is the prelude to that which later on was to be exhibited in their respective 
ministries. There is no notion for the forgetfulness or denial of which theology pays 
more dearly than that of a development in pure goodness. This positive notion is de- 
rived by biblical Christianity from this verse. With it the humanity of Jesus may 
be accepted., as it is here presented by Luke, in all its reality. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON CHAPS. 1 AND 2. 

It remains for us to form an estimate of the historical value of the accounts con- 
tained in these two chapters. 

I. QJmracteristics of the Narrative. — "We have already observed that Luke 
thoroughly believes that he is relating facts, and not giving poetical illustrations of 
ideas. He declares that he only writes in accordance with the information he has 
collected ; he writes with the design of convincing his readers of the unquestionable 
certainty of the things which he relates (1 : 3, 4) ; and in speaking thus, he has very 
specially in viuw the contents of the first two chapters (comp. the avudev, ver. 3). In 
short, the very nature of these narratives admits of no other supposition (p. 43). 
Was he himself the dupe of false information ? Was he not in a much more favor- 
able position than we are for estimating the value of the communications that were 
made to him ? There are not two ways, we imagine, of replying to these preliminary 
questions. As to the substance of the narrative, we may distinguish between the 
facts and the discourses or songs. The supernatural element in the facts only occurs 
to an extent that may be called natural, when once the supernatural character of the 
appearance of Jesus is admitted in a general way. If Mary was to accept spontane- 
ously the part to which she was called, it was necessary that she should be informed 
of it beforehand. If angels really exist, and form a part of the kingdom of God, they 
were interested as well as men in the birth of Him who was to be the Head of this 
organization, and reign over the whole moral universe. It is not surprising, then, 
that some manifestation on their part should accompany this event. That the pro- 
phetic Spirit might have at this epoch representatives in Israel, can only be disputed 
by denying the existence and action of this Spirit in the nation at any time. From 
the point of view presented by the biblical premisses, the possibility of the facts re- 
lated is then indisputable. In tbe details of the history, the supernatural is confined 



OCXNOlEXTARY OK ST. LUKE. \)b 

within the limits of the strictest sobriety and most perfect suitability, and differs 
altogether in this respect from the marvels of the apocryphal writings. * 

The discourses or hymns may appear to have been a freer element, in the treat- 
ment of which the imagination of the author might have allowed itself larger scope. 
Should not these portions be regarded as somewhat analogous to those discourses 
which the ancient historians so often put into the mouth of their heroes, a product of 
the individual or collective Christian muse ? But we have proved that, in attributing 
to the angel, to Mary, and to Zacharias the language which he puts into their 
mouths, the author would of his own accord have made his characters false 
prophets. They would be so many oracles post evejitum contra eventumf Never, 
after the unbelief of the people had brought about a separation between the Syna- 
gogue and the Church, could the Christian muse have celebrated the glories of the 
Messianic future of Israel, with such accents of artless joyous hope as prevail in these 
canticles (1 : 17, 54, 55, 74, and 75 ; 2:1, 32). The only words that could be sus- 
pected from this point of view are those which are put into the mouth of Simeon. 
For they suppose a more distinct view of the future course of things in Israel. But, 
on the other hand, it is precisely the hymn of Simeon, and his address to Mary, 
which, by their originality, conciseness, and energy, are most clearly marked with 
the stamp of authenticity. We have certainly met with some expressions of a uni- 
versalist tendency in these songs (" goodwill toward men," 2 : 14 ; "a light of the 
Gentiles," ver. 32) ; but these allusions in no way exceed the limits of ancient 
prophecy, and they are not brought out in a sufficiently marked way to indicate a 
time when Jewish Christianity and Paulinism were already in open conflict. This 
universalism is, in fact, that of the early days, simple, free, and exempt from all 
polemical design. It is the fresh and normal unfolding of the flower in its calyx. 

The opinion in closest conformity with the internal marks of the narrative, as well 
as with the clearly expressed intention of the writer, is therefore certainly that which 
regards the facts and discourses contained in these two chapters as historical. 

II. Relation of the Narratives of Chaps. 1 and 2 to the Contents of other parts of the 
JV. T.— The first point of comparison is the narrative of the infancy in Matthew, 
chaps. 1 and 2. It is confidently asserted that the two accounts are irreconcilable. 
We ask, first of all, whether there are two accounts. Does what is called the narra- 
tive of Matthew really deserve this name ? We find in the first two chapters of Mat- 
thew five incidents of the infancy of Christ, which are mentioned solely to connect 
with them five prophetic passages, and thus prove the Messianic dignity of Jesus, in 
accordance with the design of this evangelist, 1:1: Jesus, the Christ. Is this what 
we should call a narrative ? Is it not rather a didactic exposition ? So little does the 

* In addition to the specimens already given, we add the following, taken from 
the Gospel of James (2d c.) : Zacharias is high priest ; he inquires of God respecting 
the lot of the youthful Mary, brought up in the temple. God Himself commands 
that she shall be confided to Joseph. The task of embroidering the veil of the tem- 
ple is devolved upon Mary by lot. When she brings the work^Elizabeth at the sisdit 
of her praises the mother of the Messiah, without Mary herself knowing why. After- 
ward it is John, more even than Jesus, who is the object of Herod's "jealous search. 
Elizabeth flees to the desert with her child ; a rock opens to receive them ; a bright 
light reveals the presence of the angel who guards them. Herod questions Zacharias, 
who is ignorant himself where his child is. Zacharias is then slain in the temple 
court ; the carpets of the temple cry out ; a voice announces the avenger ; the body 
of the martyr disappears ; only his blood is found changed into stone. " 



96 COMMENTARY ON ST. LtJ&E. 

author entertain the idea of relating, that in chap. 1, while treating of the birth of 
Jesus, he does* not even mention Bethlehem ; he is wholly taken up with the connec- 
tion of the fact of which he is speaking with the oracle, Isa. 7. It is only after hav- 
ing finished this subject, when he comes to speak of the visit of the magi, that he 
mentions for the first time, and as it were in passing (Jesus being born iu Bethlehem) 
this locality. And with what object ? With a historical view ? Not at all. Simply 
on account of the prophecy of Micah, which is to be illustrated in the visit of the 
magi, and in which the place of the Messiah's birth was announced beforehand. 
Apart from this prophecy, he" would still less have thought of mentioning Bethlehem 
in the second narrative than in the first. And it is this desultory history, made up of 
isolated facts, referred to solely with an apologetic aim, that is to be employed to 
criticise and correct a complete narrative such as Luke's ! Is it not. clear that, be- 
tween two accounts of such a different nature, there may easily be found blanks 
which hypothesis alone can fill up ? Two incidents are common to Luke and Mat- 
thew : the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem, and His education at Nazareth. The histori- 
cal truth of the latter piece of information is not disputed. Instead of this, it is 
maintained that the former is a mere legendary invention occasioned by Mic. 5. But 
were it so, the fact would never occur in the tradition entirely detached from the 
prophetic word which would be the very soul of it. But Luke does not contain the 
slightest allusion to the prophecy of Micah. It is only natural, therefore, to admit 
that the first fact is historical as well as the other. With this common basis, three 
differences are discernible in which some find contradictions. 

First. The account which Matthew gives of the appearance of an angel to Joseph, 
in order to relieve his perplexity, is, it is said, incompatible with that of the appear- 
ance of the angel to Mary in Luke. For if this last appearance had taken place Mary 
could not have failed to have spoken of it to Joseph, and in that case his doubts 
would have been impossible. But all this is uncertain. For, first, Mary may cer- 
tainly have told Joseph everything, either before or after her return from Elizabeth ; 
but in this case, whatever confidence Joseph had in her, nothing could prevent his 
being for a moment shaken by doubt at hearing of a message and a fact so extraordi- 
nary. But it is possible also— and this supposition appears to me more probable— 
that Mary, judging it right in this affair to leave everything to God, who immediately 
directed it, held herself as dead in regard to Joseph. And, in this case, what might not 
have been his anxiety when he thought he saw Mary's condition ? On either of these 
two possible suppositions, a reason is found for the appearance of the angel to Joseph. 
Second. It would seem, according to Matthew, that at the time Jesus was born, 
His parents were residing at Bethlehem, and that this city was their permanent 
abode. Further, on their return from Egypt, when they resolved to go and live at 
Nazareth, their decision was the result of a divine interposition which aimed at the 
fulfilment of the prophecies (Matt. 2 : 22, 23). In Luke, on the contrary, the ordinary 
abode of the parents appears to be Nazareth. It is an exceptional circumstance, the 
edict of Augustus, that takes them to Bethlehem. And consequently, as soon as the 
duties, which have called them to Judaea and detained them there, are accomplished, 
they return to Nazareth, without needing any special direction (2 : 39). It is impor- 
tant here to remember the remark which we made on the nature of Matthew's narra- 
tive. In that evangelist, neither the mention of the place of birth nor of the place 
where Jesus was brought up is made as a matter of history ; in both cases it is solely 
a question of proving the fulfilment of a prophecy. An account of this kind with- 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 97 

out doubt affirms what it actually says, but it in no way denies what it does not say ; 
and it is impossible to derive from it a historical view sufficiently complete, to 
oppose it to another and more detailed account that is decidedly historical. There is 
nothing, therefore, here to prevent our completing the information furnished by Mat- 
thew from that supplied by Luke, and regarding Nazareth with the latter as the nat- 
ural abode of the parents of Jesus. What follows will complete the solution of this 
difficulty. 

Third. The incidents of the visit of the magi and the flight into Egypt, related by 
Matthew, cannot be intercalated with Luke's narrative, either before the presentation 
of the child in the temple — His parents would not have been so imprudent as to take 
Him back to Jerusalem after that the visit of the magi had drawn upon Him the jeal- 
ous notice of Herod ; and besides, there would not be, during the six weeks interven- 
ing between the birth and the presentation, the time necessary for the journey to 
Egypt — or after this ceremony ; for, according to Luke 2 : 39 ; the parents return di- 
rectly from Jerusalem to Nazareth, without going again to Bethlehem, where never- 
theless they must have received the visit of the magi ; and according to Matthew him- 
self, Joseph, after the return from Egypt, does not return to Judsea, but goes imme- 
diately to settle in Galilee. But notwithstanding these reasons, it is not impossible to 
place the presentation at Jerusalem, either after or before the visit of the magi. If 
this had already taken place, Joseph and Mary must have put their trust in God's 
care to protect the child ; and the time is no objection to this supposition, as Wieseler 
has shown. For from Bethlehem to Rhinocolure,, the first Egyptian town, is only 
three or four days' journey* Three weeks, then, would, strictly speaking, suffice to 
go and return. It is more natural, however, to place the visit of the magi and the 
journey into Egypt after the presentation. We have only to suppose that after this 
ceremony Mary and Joseph returned to Bethlehem, a circumstance of which Luke 
was not aware, and which he has omitted. In the same way, in the Acts, he omits 
Paul's journey into Arabia after his conversion, and combines into one the two so- 
journs at Damascus separated by this journey. This return to Bethlehem, situated at 
such a short distance from Jerusalem, is too natural to need to be particularly 
accounted for. But it is completely accounted for, if we suppose that, when Joseph 
and Mary left Nazareth on account of the census, they did so with the intention of 
settling at Bethlehem. Many reasons would induce them to this decision. It might 
appear to them more suitable that the child on whom such high promises rested should 
be brought up at Bethlehem, the city of His royal ancestor, in the neighborhood of 
the capital, than in the remote hamlet of Nazareth. The desire of being near Zacha- 
rias and Elizabeth would also attract them to Judasa. Lastly, they would thereby 
avoid the calumnious judgments which the short time that elapsed between their mar- 
riage and the birth of the child could not have failed to occasion had they dwelt at 
Nazareth. Besides, even though this had not been their original plan, after Joseph 
had been settled at Bethlehem for some weeks, and had found the means of subsist- 
ence there, nothing would more naturally occur to his mind than the idea of settling 
down at the place. In this way the interposition of the angel is explained, who in 
Matthew induces him to return to Galilee. Bleek inclines to the opinion that the 
arrival of the magi preceded the presentation, and that the journey into Egypt fol- 
owed it. This supposition is admissible also ; it alters nothing of importance in the 
course of things as presented in the preceding explanations, of which we give a 
sketch in the following recapitulation : 



98 COMMENTARY OH ST. LUKE. 

1. The angel announces to Mary the birth of Jesus (Luke 1). 2. Mary, after or 
without having spoken to Joseph, goes to Elizabeth (Luke 1). 3. After her return, 
Joseph falls into the state of perplexity from which he is delivered by the message of 
the angel (Matt. 1). 4. He takes Mary ostensibly for his wife (Matt. 1). 5. Herod's 
order, carrying out the decree of Augustus, leads them to Bethlehem (Luke 2). 6. 
Jesus is born (Matt. 1 ; Luke 2). 7. His parents present Him in the temple (Luke 2). 
8. On their return to Bethlehem, they receive the visit of the magi and escape into 
Egypt (Matt. 2), 9. Returned from Egypt, they give up the idea of settling at Beth- 
lehem, and determine once more to fix their abode at Nazareth. 

Only one condition is required in order to accept this effort to harmonize the two 
accounts — namely, the supposition that each writer was ignorant of the other's nar- 
rative. But this supposition is allowed by even the most decided adversaries of any 
attempt at harmony — such, for instance, as Keim, who, although he believes that 
Luke in composing his Gospel made use of Matthew, is nevertheless of opinion that 
the first two chapters of Matthew 's writing were not in existence at the time when 
Luke availed himself of it for the composition of his own. 

If the solution proposed does not satisfy the reader, and he thinks he must choose 
between the two writings, it will certainly be more natural to suspect the narrative 
of Matthew, because it has no proper historical aim. But further, it will only be 
right, in estimating the value of the facts related by this evangelist, to remember that 
the more forced in some cases appears the connection which he maintains between the 
facts he mentions and the prophecies he applies to them, the less probable is it that 
the former were invented on the foundation of the latter. Such incidents as the 
journey into Egypt and the massacre of the children must have been well-ascer- 
tained facts before any one would think of finding a prophetic announcement of 
them in the words of Hosea and Jeremiah, which the author quotes and applies to 
them 

We pass on to other parts of the N. T. Meyer maintains that certain facts sub- 
sequently related by the synoptics themselves are incompatible with the reality of the 
miraculous events of the infancy. How could the brethren of Jesus, acquainted 
with these prodigies, refuse to believe in their brother ? How could even 
Mary herself share their unbelief? (Mark 3:21, 31 eiseq. ; Matt. 12:46 et seg. ; 
Luke 8 1 19 et seq. ; comp. John 7:5.) In reply, it may be said that we do not know 
how far Mary could communicate to her sons, at any rate before the time of Jesus' 
ministry, these extraordinary circumstances, which touched on very delicate matters 
affecting herself. Besides, jealousy and prejudice might easily counteract any im- 
pression produced by facts of which they had not been witnesses, and induce them 
to think, notwithstanding, that Jesus was taking a wrong course. Did not John the 
Baptist himself, although he had given public testimony to Jesus, as no one would 
venture to deny, feel his faith shaken in view of the unexpected course which His 
work took ? and did not this cause him to be offended in Him ? (Matt. 11 : 6.7 As 
to Mary, there is nothing to prove that she shared the unbelief of her sons. If she 
accompanies them when they go to Jesus, intending to lay hold upon Him (Mark 3), 
it is probably from a feeling of anxiety as to what might take place, and from a de- 
sire to prevent the conflict she anticipates. Keim alleges the omission of the narra- 
tives of the infancy in Mark and John. These two evangelists, it is true, make the 
starting-point of their narrative on this side of these facts. Mark opens his with the 
ministry of the forerunner, which he regards as the true commencement pf that of- 



COMMENTAEY ON ST. LUKE. 99 

Jesus.* But it does not follow from this that he denies all the previous circumstances 
which he does not relate. All that this proves is, that the original apostolic preaching, 
of which this Gospel is the simplest reproduction, went no further back ; and for this 
manifest reason, that this preachiDg was based on the tradition of the apostles as eye- 
witnesses (avTOTTTai, 1:2; Acts 1 : 21, 22 ; John 15 : 27), and that the personal testi- 
mony of the apostles did not go back as far as the early period of the life of Jesus. 
It is doubtless for the same reason that Paul, in his enumeration of the testimonies to 
the resurrection of Jesus, omits that of the women, because he regards the testimony 
of the apostles and of the Church gathered about them as the only suitable basis for 
the official instruction of the Church. John commences his narrative at the hour of 
the birth of his own faith, which simply proves that the design of his work is to trace 
the history of the development of his own faith and of that of his fellow-disciples. 
All that occurred previous to this time — the baptism of Jesus, the temptation — he 
leaves untold ; but he does not on that account deny these facts, for he himself 
alludes to the baptism of Jesus. 

Keim goes further. He maintains that there are to be found in the N". T. three 
theories as to the origin of the person of Christ, which are exclusive of each other : 
First. That of the purely natural birth ; this would be the true view of the apostles 
and primitive Church, which was held by the Ebionitish communities (Clement, 
Homil.). This being found insufficient to explain such a remarkable sequel as the 
life of Jesus, it must have been supplemented afterward by the legend of the descent 
of the Holy Spirit at the baptism. Second. That of the miraculous birth, held by 
part of the Jewish- Christian communities and the Nazarene churches, and proceeding 
from an erroneous Messianic application of Isa. 7. This theory is found in the Gos- 
pel of Luke and in Matt. 1 and 2. Third. The theory of the pre-existence of Jesus 
as a divine being, originated in the Greek churches, of which Paul and John are the 
principal representatives. To this we reply : 

First. That it cannot be proved that the apostolic and primitive doctrine was that 
of the natural birth. Certain words are cited in proof which are put by the evange- 
lists in the mouth of the people : "Is not this the carpenter's son ?" (Matt. 13 : 55 ; 
Luke 4 : 22 ; comp. John 6 : 42) ; next the words of the Apostle Philip in John : " We 
have found . . . Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph" (John 1 : 45). The 
absence of all protest on the part of John against this assertion of Philip's is regarded 
as a confirmation of the fact that he himself admitted its truth. But who could with 
any reason be surprised that, on the day after Jesus made the acquaintance of His 
first disciples. Philip should still be ignorant of the miraculous birth ? Was Jesus to 
hasten to tell this fact to those who saw Him for the first time ? Was there nothing 
more urgent to teach these young hearts just opening to His influence ? Who cannot 
understand why Jesus should allow the words of the people to pass, without an- 
nouncing such a fact as this to these cavilling, mocking Jews ? Jesus testifies before 
all what He has seen with His Father by the inward sense, and not outward facts 
which He had from the fallible lips of others. Above all, He very well knew that 
it was not faith in His miraculous birth that would produce faith in His person ; on 
the contrary, that it was only faith in His person tbat would induce any one to admit 
the miracle of His birth. He saw that, to put out before a hostile and profane people 

* These words, The beginning of tlie Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of Qod (Mark 
1 : 1), appear to me to be in logical apposition with the subsequent account of the 
ministry of John (5 : 4). 



100 COMMENTAEY ON ST. LUKE. 

an assertion like this, which He could not possibly prove, would only draw forth a 
flood of coarse ridicule, which would fall directly on that revered person who was 
more concerned in this history even than Himself, and that without the least advan- 
tage to the faith of any one. Certainly this was a case for the application of the pre- 
cept, Cast not your pearls before swine, if you would not have them turn again and 
rend you. This observation also explains the silence of the apostles on this point in 
the Acts of the Apostles. They could not have done anything more ill-advised than 
to rest the controversy between the Jews and Christ on such a ground. If John does 
not rectify the statements of the people and of Philip, the reason is, that he wrote 
for the Church already formed and sufficiently instructed. His personal conviction 
appears from the following facts : He admitted the human birth, for he speaks several 
times of His mother. At the same time he regarded natural birth as the means of 
the transmission of sin: ''That which is born of the flesh is flesh." And never- 
theless he regarded this Jesus, born of a human mother, as the Holy One of Ood, and 
the bread that came down from heaven ! Is it possible that he did not attribute an ex- 
ceptional character to His birth ? As to Mark, we do not, with Bleek, rely upon the 
name Son of Mary, which is given to Jesus by the people of Nazareth (6 : 3) ; this 
appellation in their mouth does not imply a belief in the miraculous birth. But in 
the expression, Jesus Christ, tlie Son of God' (1 : 1), the latter title certain implies 
more, in the author's mind, than the simple notion of Messiah ; this, in fact, was 
already sufficiently expressed by the name Christ. There can be no doubt, therefore, 
that this term implies in Mark a relation of mysterious Sonship between the person 
of Jesus and the Divine Being.* All these passages quoted by Keim only prove 
what is self-apparent, that the notion of the natural birth of Jesus was that of the 
Jewish people, and also of the apostles in the early days of their faith, before they 
received fuller information. It is not at all surprising, therefore, that it remained 
the idea of the Ebionitish churches, which never really broke with the Israelitish 
past, but were contented to apply to Jesus the popular notion of the Jewish Messiah. 
Keim also rinds a trace of this alleged primitive theory in the two genealogies con- 
tained in Luke and Matthew. According to him, these documents imply, by their 
very nature, that those who drew them up held the idea of a natural birth. For 
what interest could they have had in giving the genealogical tree of Joseph, unless 
they had regarded him as the father of the Messiah ? Further, in order to make these 
documents square with their new theory of the miraculous birth, the two evangelists 
have been obliged to subject them to arbitrary revision, as is seen in the appendix 
£5 yS . . . Matt. 1 : 16, and in the parenthesis wc evonl&ro, Luke 3 : 23. It is 
very possible, indeed, that the original documents, reproduced in Matt. 1 and Luke 3, 
were of Jewish origin ; they were probably the same public registers ( diTiroi 67](.i6ciai) 
from which the historian Josephus asserts that his own genealogy was taken.f 
It is perfectly obvious that such documents could contain no indication of the mirac- 
ulous birth of Jesus, if even they went down to Him. But how could this fact fur- 
nish a proof of the primitive opinion of the Church about the birth of its Head ? It 
is in these genealogies, as revised and completed by Christian historians, that we must 
seek the sentiments of the primitive Church respecting the person of her Master. 
And this is precisely what we find in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. The former, 

* If the Sinaiticus suppresses it, this is one of the numberless omissions, resulting 
from the negligence of the copvist, with which this manuscript abounds, 
f "Jos, Vita," c. I 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 101 

in demonstrating, by the genealogy which he presents to us, the Davidic sonship of 
Joseph, declares that, as regards Jesus, this same Joseph sustains part of the adop- 
tive, legal father. The extract from the public registers which the second hands 
down is not another edition of that of Joseph, in contradiction with the former ; it is 
the genealogy of Levi, the father of Mary (see 1 : 23). Iu transmitting this document, 
Luke is careful to observe that the opinion which made Jesus the son of Joseph was 
only a popular prejudice, and that the relationship of which he here indicates the 
links is the only real one. These are not, therefore, Jewish-Christian materials, as 
Keim maintains, but purely Jewish ; and the evangelists, when inserting them into 
their writings, have imprinted on them, each after his own manner, the Christian seal. 

Keim relies further on the silence of Paul respecting the miraculous birth. But is 
he really silent ? Can it be maintained that the expression, Rom. 1:3, "made of 
the seed of David according to the flesh," was intended by Paul to describe the entire 
fact of the human birth of Jesus ? Is it not clear that the words, according to the 
flesh, are a restriction expressly designed to indicate another side to this fact, the 
action of another factor, called in the following clause the spirit of holiness, by which 
he explains the miracle of the resurrection? The notion of the miraculous birth 
appears equally indispensable to explain the antithesis, 1 Cor. 15:47: "The first 
man is of the earth, earthy ; the second, from heaven." But whatever else he is, Paul 
is a man of logical mind. How then could he affirm, on the one hand, the hereditary 
transmission of sin and death by natural generation, as he does in Rom. 5 : 12, and on 
the other the truly human birth of Jesus (Gal. 4 : 4), whom he regards as the Holy 
One, if, in his view, the birth of this extraordinary man was not of an exceptional 
character ? Only, as this fact could not, from its very nature, become the subject of 
apostolical testimony, nor for that reason enter into general preaching, Paul does not 
include it among the elements of the izapadociS whicb. he enumerates, 1 Cor. 15 : 1 et 
seq. And if he does not make any special dogmatic use of it, it is because, as we 
have observed, the miraculous birth is only the negative condition of the holiness of 
Jesus ; its positive condition is, and must be, his voluntary obedience ; consequently 
it is this that Paul particularly brings out (Rom. 8 : 1-4). These reasons apply to the 
other didactic writings of the X. T. 

Second. It is arbitrary to maintain that the narrative of the descent of the Holy 
Spirit is only a later complement of the theory of the natural birth. Is not this nar- 
rative found in two of our synoptics by the side of that of the supernatural birth ? 
And yet this is only a complement of the theory of the natural birth ! Further, in 
all these synoptics alike, it is found closely and organically connected with two other 
facts, the ministry of John and the temptation, which proves that these three narra- 
tives formed a very firmly connected cycle in the evangelical tradition, and belonged 
to the very earliest preaching. 

Third. The idea of the pre-existence of Jesus is in no way a rival theory to that 
of the miraculous birth ; on the contrary, the former implies the latter as its necessary 
element. It is the idea of the natural birth which, if we think a little, appears in- 
compatible with that of the incarnation. M. Secretan admirably says : " Man repre- 
sents the principle of individuality, of progress ; woman, that of tradition, generality, 
species. The Saviour could not be the son of a particular man ; He behoved ty be 
the son of humanity, the Son of man." * 

* " La Raison et le Christianisme, " pp. 259 and 277. 



102 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

Fourth. So far from there being in the N. T. writings traces of three opposite 
theories on this point, the real state of the case is this : The disciples set out, just as 
the Jewish people did, with the idea of an ordinary birth ; it was the natural suppo- 
sition (John 1 : 45). But as they came to understand the prophetic testimony, which 
makes the Messiah the supreme manifestation of Jehovah, and the testimony of Jesus 
Himself, which constantly implies a divine background to His human existence, they 
soon rose to a knowledge of the God-man, whose human existence was preceded by 
His divine existence, This step was taken, in the consciousness of the Church, a 
quarter of a century after the death of Jesus. The Epistles of Paul are evidence of it [ 
(1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1 : 15-17 ; Phil. 2 : 6, 7), Lastly, the mode'of transition from the L 
divine existence to the human life, the fact of the miraculous birth, entered a little 
later into the sphere of the ecclesiastical world, by means of the Gospels of Matthew 
and Luke, about thirty-five or forty years after the departure of the Saviour. 

III. Connection betioeen these Narratives and the Christian Faith in general. — The 
miraculous birth is immediately and closely connected with the perfect holiness of 
Christ, which is the basis of the Christology ; so much so, that whoever denies the 
former of these miracles must necessarily be led to deny the latter ; and whoever 
accepts the second cannot fail to fall back on the first, which is indeed implied in it. 
As to the objection, that even if the biblical narrative . of the miraculous birth is 
accepted, it is impossible to explain how it was that sin was not communicated to 
Jesus through His mother, it has been already answered (p. 93). The miraculous 
birth is equally inseparable from the fact of the incarnation. It is true that the first 
may be admitted and the second rejected, but the reverse is impossible. The neces- 
sity for an exceptional mode of birth results from the pre-existence (p. 160). But 
here we confront the great objection to the miraculous birth : What becomes, from 
this point of view, of the real and proper humanity of the Saviour ? Can it be recon- 
ciled with this exceptional mode of birth ? " The conditions of existence being differ- 
ent from ours," says Keim, " equality of nature no longer exists." But, we would 
ask those who reason in this way, do you admit the theories of Vogt respecting the 
origin of the human race ? Do you make man proceed from the brute ? If not, then 
you admit a creation of the human race ; and in this case you must acknowledge that 
the conditions of existence in the case of the first couple were quite different from 
ours. Do you, on this ground, deny the full and real humanity of the first man ? 
But to deny the human character to the being from whom has proceeded by way of 
generation, that is to say, by the transmission of his own nature, all that is called 
man, would be absurd. Identity of nature is possible, therefore, notwithstanding a 
difference in the mode of origin. To understand this fact completely, we need to 
have a complete insight into the relation of the individual to the species, which is the 
most unfathomable secret of nature. But there is something here still more serious. 
Jesus is not only the continuator of human nature as it already exists ; He is the 
elect of God, by whom it is to be renewed and raised to its destined perfection. In 
Him is accomplished the new creation, which is the true end of the old. This work 
of a higher nature can only take place in virtue of a fresh and immediate contact of 
creative power with human nature. Keim agrees with this up to a certain point ; 
for while holding the paternal concurrence in the birth of this extraordinary man, 
he admits a divine interposition which profoundly influenced and completely sancti- 
fied the appearance of this Being.* This attempt at explanation is an homage 

* " Gesch. Jesu," t. i. pp. 357, 358. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 103 

rendered to the incomparable moral greatness of Jesus, and we think it leaves un- 
touched the great object of" faith — Jesus Christ's dignity as the Saviour. But must 
we not retort upon this explanation the objection which Keim brings against the two 
notions of the pre-existence and the supernatural birth : " These are theories, not 
facts established by any documents !" If it is absolutely necessary to acknowledge 
that Jesus was a man specifically different from all others,* and if, in order to explain 
this phenomenou, it is indispensable to stipulate, as Keim really does, for an excep- 
tional mode of origin, then why not keep to. the positive statements of our Gospels, 
which satisfy this demand, rather than throw ourselves upon pure speculation ? 

IV. Origin of the Narratives of the Infancy. — The difference of style, so absolute' 
and abrupt, between Luke's preface (1 : 1-4) and the following narratives, leaves no 
room for doubt that from 1 : 5 the author makes use of documents of which he scru- 
pulously preserves the very form. What were these documents? According to 
Schleiermacher, they were brief family records which the compiler of the Gospel 
contented himself wifh connectiug together in such a way as to form a continuous 
narrative. But the modes of conclusion, and the general views which appear as 
recurring topics, in which Schleiermacher sees the proof of his hypothesis, on the 
contrary upset it. For these brief summaries, by their resemblance and correspond- 
ence, prove a unity of composition in the entire narrative. Volkmar regards the 
sources of these narratives as some originally Jewish materials, into which the author 
has infused his own Pauline feeling. According to Keim, their source would be the 
great Ebionitish writing which constitutes, in his opinion, the original trunk of our 
Gospel, on which the author set himself to graft his Paulinism. These two suppo- 
sitions come to the same thing. We are certainly struck with the twofold character 
of these narratives ; there is a spirit of profound and scrupulous fidelity to the law, 
side by side with a not less marked universalist tendency. But are these really two 
currents of contrary origin ? I think not. The old covenant already contained these 
two currents — one strictly legal, the other to a great extent universalist. Universal- 
ism is even, properly speaking, the primitive current ; legalism was only added to i 1- 
afterward, if it is true that Abraham preceded Moses. The narratives of the infancy 
reflect simply and faithfully this twofold character ; for they exhibit to us the normal 
transition from the old to the new covenant. If the so-called Pauline element had 
been introduced into it subsequently, it would have taken away much more of the 
original tone, and would not appear organically united with it ; and if it were only 
the product of a party manoeuvre, its polemical character could not have been so com- 
pletely disguised. These two elements, as they present themselves in these narra- 
tives, in no way prove, therefore, two sources of an opposite religious nature. 

The true explanation of the origin of Luke's and Matthew's narrative appears to 
me to be found in the following fact. In Matthew, Joseph is the principal person- 
age. It is to him that the angel appears ; he comes to calm his perplexities ; it is to 
him that the name of Jesus is notified and explained. Jf the picture of the infancy 
be represented, as in a stereoscope, in a twofold form, in Matthew it is seen on the 
side of Joseph ; in Luke, on the contrary, it is Mary who assumes the principal part. 
It is she who receives the visit of the angel ; to her is communicated the name of the 
child ; her private feelings are brought out in the narrative ; it is she who is promi- 
nent in the address of Simeon and in the history of the search for the child. The 
picture is the same, but it is taken this time on Mary's side. 

* "Gesch. Jesu," t. i. p. 359. 



104 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

From this we can draw no other conclusion than that the two cycles of narratives 
emanate from two different centres. One of these was the circle of which Joseph 
was the centre, and which we may suppose consisted of Cleopas his brother, James 
and Jude his sons, of whom one was the first bishop of the flock at Jerusalem ; and 
Simeon, a son of Cleopas, the first successor of James. The narratives preserved 
among these persons might easily reach the ear of the author of the first Gospel, who 
doubtless lived in the midst of this flock ; and his Gospel, which, far more than 
Luke's, was the record of the official preaching, was designed to reproduce rather 
that side of the facts which up to a certain point already belonged to the public. But 
a cycle of narratives must also have formed itself round Mary, in the retreat in which 
she ended her career. These narratives would have a much more private character, 
and would exhibit more of the inner meaning of the external facts. These, doubtless, 
are those which Luke has preserved. How he succeeded in obtaining access to this 
source of information, to which he probably alludes in the avttfev (1 : 3), we do not 
know. But it is certain that the nature of these narratives was better suited to the 
private character of his work. Does not Luke give us a glimpse, as it were de- 
signedly, of this incomparable source of information in the remarks (2 : 19, and 50, 
51) which, from any other point of view, could hardly be anything else than a piece 
of charlatanism ? 

We think that these two cycles of narratives existed for a certain time— the one as 
a public tradition, the other as a family souvenir, in a purely oral form. The author 
of the first Gospel was doubtless the first who drew up the former, adapting it to the 
didactic aim which he proposed to himself in his work. The latter was originally in 
Aramaean, and under any circumstances could only have been drawn up, as we have 
shown, after the termination of the ministry of Jesus. It was in this form that Luke 
found it. He translated it, and inserted it in his work. The very songs had been 
faithfully preserved until then. For this there was no need of the stenographer. Mary's 
heart had preserved all ; the writer himself testifies as much, and he utters no vain 
words. The deeper feelings are, the more indelibly graven on the soul are the thoughts 
which embody them ; and the recollection of the peculiar expressions in which they 
find utterance remains indissolubly linked with the recollection of the thoughts them- 
selves. Every one has verified this experience in the graver moments of his life. 

Lastly, in the question which now occupies our attention, let us not forget to bear 
in mind the importance which these narratives possessed in the view of the two writ- 
ers who have handed them down to us. They wrote seriously, because they were 
believers, and wrote to win the faith of the world. 



SECOND PART. 



THE ADVENT OF THE MESSIAH. 

Chap. 3 : 1 ; 4 : 13. 

For eighteen years Jesus lived unknown in the seclusion of Nazareth. His 
fellow- townsmen, recalling this period of His life, designate Him the carpenter (Mark 
6 : 3). Justin Martyr — deriving the fact, doubtless, from tradition — represents Jesus 
as making ploughs and yokes, and teaching men righteousness by these products of 
His peaceful toil.* Beneath the veil of this life of humble toil, an inward development 
was accomplished, which resulted in a state of perfect receptivity for the measureless 
communication of the Divine Spirit. This result was attained just when Jesus 
reached the climacteric of human life, the age of thirty, when both soul and body 
enjoy the highest degree of vitality, and are fitted to become the perfect organs of a 
higher inspiration. The forerunner then having given the signal, Jesus left His ob- 
scurity to accomplish the task which had presented itself to Him for the first time in 
the temple, when He was twelve years of age, as the ideal of His life — the establish- 
ment of the kingdom of God on the earth. Here begins the second phase of His ex- 
istence, during which He gave forth what He had received in the first. 

This transition from private life to public activity is the subject of the following 
part, which comprises four sections : 1< The ministry of John the Baptist (3 : 1-20) ; 
2. The baptism of Jesus (vers. 21, 22) ; 3. The genealogy (vers. 23-38) ; 4. The temp- 
tation (4 : 1-13). The corresponding part in the two other synoptics embraces only 
numbers 1, 2, and 4. We shall have no difficulty in perceiving the connection be- 
tween these three sections, and the reason which induced St. Luke to intercalate the 
fourth. 

FIRST NARRATIVE, — CHAP. 3 : 1-20. 

The Ministry of John the Baptist. 

We already know from 1 : 77, why theJVIessiah. was to have a forerunner. A mis- 
taken notion of salvation had taken possession of Israel. It was necessary that a man 
clothed with divine authority should restore it to its purity before the Messiah labored 
to accomplish it. Perhaps no more stirring character is presented in sacred history 
than that of John the Baptist. The people are excited at his appearing ; their con- 
sciences are aroused ; multitudes flock to him. The entire nation is filled with 
solemn expectation ; and just at the moment w r hen this man has only to speak the 
word to make himself the centre of this entire movement, he not only refrains from 
saying this word, but he pronounces another. He directs all the eager glances that 

* "Dial. c. Trypls." c. 88. 



106 COMMENTAEY ON" ST. LU&& 

were fixed upon himself to One coming after him, whose sandals he is not worthy to 
carry. Then, as soon as his successor has appeared, he retires to the background, 
and gives enthusiastic expression to his joy at seeing himself eclipsed. ' Criticism is 
fertile in resources of every kind ; but with this unexampled moral phenomenon to 
account for, it will find it difficult to give any satisfactory explanation of it, without 
appealing to some factor of a higher order. 

Luke begins by framing the fact which he is about to relate in a general outline of 
the history of the time (vers. 1 and 2), He next describes the personal appearance of 
John the Baptist (vers. 3-6) ; he gives a summary of his preaching (vers. 7-18) ; and 
he finishes with an anticipatory account of his imprisonment (vers. 19, 20). 

1. Vers. 1 and 2;* In this concise description of the epoch at which John ap- 
peared, Luke begins with the largest sphere — that of the empire. Then, by a natural 
transition furnished by his reference to the representative of imperial power in Judaea, 
he passes to the special domain of the people of Israel ; and he shows us the Holy 
Land divided into four distinct states. After having thus described the political 
situation, he sketches in a word the ecclesiastical and religious position, which brings 
him to his subject. It cannot be denied that there is considerable skill in this pre- 
amble. Among the evangelists, Luke is the true historian. 

And first the empire. Augustus died on the 19th of August of the year 767 u.c, 
corresponding to the year 14 and 15 of our era. If Jesus was born in 749 or 750 u.c, 
He must have been at this time about eighteen years of age. At the death of 
Augustus, Tiberius had already, for two years past, shared his throne. The fifteenth 
year of his reign may consequently be reckoned, either from the time when he began 
to share the sovereignty with Augustus, or from the time when he began to reign 
alone, upon the death of the latter. The Roman historians generally date the reign 
of Tiberius from the time when he began to reign alone. According to this mode of 
reckoning, the fifteenth year would be the year of Home 781 to 782, that is to say, 
28 to 29 of our era. But at this time Jesus would be already thirty-rtwo to thirty- 
three years of age, which would be opposed to the statement 3 : 23, according to 
which He was only thirty years old at the time of His baptism, toward the end of 
John's ministry. According to the other mode of reckoning, the fifteenth year of the 
reign of Tiberius would be the year of Rome 779 to 780. 26 to 27 of our era. Jesus 
would be about twenty-nine years old when John the Baptist appeared ; and suppos- 
ing that the public ministry of the latter lasted six months or a year, He would be 
about thirty years of age when He received baptism from him. In this way 
agreement is established between the two chronological data, 3 : 1 and 23. It has 
long been maintained that this last mode of reckoning, as it is foreign to the Roman 
writers, could only be attributed to Luke to meet the requirements of harmonists. 
Wieseler, however, has just proved, by inscriptions and medals, that it prevailed in 
the East, and particularly at Antioch,f whence Luke appears originally to have come, 
and where he certainly resided for some time. 

"* Ver. 1. &* omits Irovpataq . . . Avoavtov (confusion of the two tvc). Ver. 
2. Instead of apxieoeuv, which is the reading of T. R. with some Mnn. ItP lerl * ie ,Tg. 
all the Mjj., etc., read apxiepeoS. 

f " Beitrage zur richtigen Wiirdigung der Evangelien," etc., 1869, pp. 191-194. 
As to seeing, with him, in the terms naioap (instead of Augustus) and r/ye/j.oula (in- 
stead of uovapx'ta) proofs of the co-regency of Tiberius, these are subtleties in which 
it is impossible for us to follow this scholar. 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. . . 107 

The circle narrows. We return to the Holy Land. The title of Pontius Pilate 
was properly entTpoTroS, procurator. That of f/ye/tuv belonged to the superior, the 
Governor of Syria. But as", in Judaea, the military command was joined to the civil 
authority, the procurator had a right to the title of rjyefiuv. Upon the deprivation of 
Archelaus, son of Kerod, in the year 6 of our era, Judaea was united to the empire. 
It formed, with Samaria and Idumea, one of the districts of the province of Syria. 
Pilate was its fifth governor. He arrived there in the year 26, or sooner, in the 
autumn of the year 25 of our era ; thus, in any case, a very short time before the 
ministry of John the Baptist. He remained in power ten years. 

Herod, in his will, made a division of his kingdom. The first share was given to 
Archelaus, with the title of ethnarch — an inferior title to that of king, but superior to 
that of tetrarcli. This share soon passed to the Romans. The second, which com- 
prised Galilee and the Peraea, was that of Herod Antipas. The title of tetrarcli, given 
to this prince, signifies properly sovereign of a fourth. It was then employed as a 
designation for dependent petty princes among whom had been shared (originally in 
fourths *) certain territories previously united under a single sceptre. Herod Antipas 
reigned for forty-two years, until the year 89 of our era. The entire ministry of our 
Lord was therefore accomplished in his reign. The third share was Philip's, another 
son of Herod, who had the same title as Antipas. It embraced Ituraea (Dschedur), a 
country situated to the south-east of the Libanus, but not mentioned by Josephus 
among the states of Philip, and in addition, Trachonitis and Batanaea. Philip reigned 
37 years, until the year 34 of our era. If the title of tetrarcli be taken in its etymo- 
logical sense, this term would imply that Herod had made a fourth share of his 
states ; and this would naturally be that which Luke here designates by the name of 
Abilene, and which he assigns to Lysanias. Abila was a town situated to the north- 
west of Damascus, at the foot of the Auti-Libanus. Half a century before the time 
of which we are writing, there reigned in this country a certain Lysanias, the son 
and successor of Ptolemy king of Chalcis. This Lysanias was assassinated thirty-six 
years before our era by Antony, who gave a part of his dominions to Cleopatra, \ 
•His heritage then passed into various hands. Profane history mentions no Lysanias 
after that one ; and Strauss is eager to accuse Luke of having, by a gross error, made 
Lysanias live and reign sixty years after his death. Keim forms an equally un- 
favorable estimate of the statement of Luke 4 But while we possess no positive proof 
establishing the existence of a L.ysanias posterior to the one of whom Josephus 
speaks, we ought at least, before accusing Luke of such a serious error, to take into 
consideration the following facts : 1. The ancient Lysanias bore the title of king, 
which Antony had given him (Dion Cassius, xlix. 32), and not the very inferior title 
of tetrareh.§ 2. He only reigned from four to five years ; and it would be difficult 
to understand how, after such a short possession, a century afterward, had Abilene 
even belonged to him of old, it should still have borne for this sole reason, in all the 
historians, the name of Abilene of Lysanias (Jos. Antiq. xviii. 6. 10, xix. 5. 1, etc. ; 
Ptolem. v. 18). 3. A medal and an inscription found by Pococke || mention a 

* Wieseler, work cited, p. 204. 

f Jos. " Antiq." xiv. 7. 4 ; "Bell. Jud." i. 9. 2 ; '* Antiq." xv. 4. 1, xiv. 13. 3. 

t " In the third tetrarch, Lysanias of Abilene, Luke introduces a personage who 
did not exist" (" Gesch. Jesu," t. i. p. G18). 

§ Not one of the numerous passages cited by Keim (i. p. 619, note) proves the con- 
trary. . J " Morgenland," ii. 177. 



108 COMMENTAEY ON ST. LUKE. 

Lysanias tetrarch and high priest, titles which do not naturally apply to the ancient 
king Lysanias. From all these facts, therefore, it would be reasonable to conclude, 
with several interpreters, that there was a younger Lysanias — a descendant, doubt- 
less, of the preceding — who possessed, not, as his ancestor did, the entire kingdom of 
Chalcis, but simply the tetrarchate of Abilene. This natural supposition may at the 
present day be asserted as a fact.* Two inscriptions recently deciphered prove : 1. 
That at the very time when Tiberius was co-regent with Augustus, there actually 
existed a tetrarch Lysanias. For it was a freed man of this Lysanias, named Nym- 
phseus (NvfxcpaioS . . . Avoaviov rerpdpxov aizeTievBepo^), who had executed some con- 
siderable works to which one of these inscriptions refers (Boeckh's Corbus inscript. 
Gr. No. 4521). 2. That this Lysanias was a descendant of the ancient Lysanias. f 
This may be inferred, with a probability verging on certainty, from the terms of the 
other inscription : " and to the sons of Lysanias" (Ibid. No. 4523). Augustus took 
pleasure in restoring to the children what his rivals had formerly taken away from 
their fathers. Thus the young Jamblichus, king of Emesa, received from him the 
inheritance of his father of the same name, slain by Antony. In the same way, also, 
was restored to Archelaus of Cappadocia a part of Cilicia, which had formerly be- 
longed to his father of the same name. Why should not Augustus have done as 
much for the young Lysanias, whose ancestor had been slain and deprived by An- 
tony ? That this country should be here considered by Luke as belonging to the 
Holy Land, is explained, either by the fact that Abilene had been temporarily sub- 
ject to Herod — aud it is something in favor of this supposition, that when Claudius 
restored to Agrippa I. all the dominions of his grandfather Herod the Great, he also 
gave him Abilene \ — or by this, that the inhabitants of the countries held by the an- 
cient Lysanias had been incorporated into the theocracy by circumcision a century 
before Christ, and that the ancient Lysanias himself was born of a Jewish mother, 
an Asmonaean, and thus far a Jew.§ This people, therefore, in a religious point of 
view, formed part of the holy people as well as the Idumseans. The intention of 
Luke in describing the dismemberment of the Holy Land at this period, is to make 
palpable the political dissolution into which the theocracy had fallen at the time 
when He appeared who was to establish it in its true form, by separating the eternal 
kingdom from its temporary covering. 

Luke passes to the sphere of religion (ver. 2). The true reading is doubtless the 
sing. apxiepeuS, the high priest Annas and Gaiaphas. How is this strange phrase to 
be explained ? It cannot be accidental, or used without thought. The predecessor 
of Pilate, Valerius Gratus, had deposed, in the year 14, the high priest Annas. Then, 
during a period covering some years, four priestly rulers were chosen and deposed in 
succession. Caiaphas, who had the title, was son-in-law of Annas, and had been ap- 
pointed by Gratus about the year 17 of our era. He filled this office until 36. It is 
possible that, in conformity with the law which made the high-priesthood an office 
for life, the nation continued to regard Annas, notwithstanding his deprivation and 

* Wieseler, work quoted, pp. 191 and 202-204. 

f It does not follow from the expression of Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. i. 9), recapitu- 
lating the account of Josephus, that the young Lysanias was a son of Herod. We 
may, and indeed, as it appears to me, we must, refer the title of adetyoi, brethren, 
only to Philip and Herod the younger, and not to Lysanias : " The brothers Philip 
and Herod the younger, with Lysanias, governed their tetrarchies. " The note in the 
first edition must be corrected accordingly. 

% Jos. " Antiq." xix. 5. 1. § Wieseler, work quoted, p. 204. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 109 

the different elections which followed this event, as the true high priest, while all 
those pontiffs who had followed him were only, in the eyes of the best part of the 
people, titular high priests. In this way Luke's expression admits of a very natural 
explanation : " Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests," that is to say, the two 
high priests — one by right, the other in fact. This expression would have all the 
better warrant, because, as history proves, Annas in reality continued, as before, to 
hold the reins of government. This was especially the case under the pontificate of 
Caiaphas, his son-in-law. John indicates this state of things in a striking way in 
two passages relating to the trial of Jesus, 18 : 13 and 24 : " And they bound Jesus, 
and led Him away to Annas first ; for he was father-in-law to Caiaphas. 
And Annas sent Jesus bound to Caiaphas, the high priest." These words furnish 
in some sort a commentary on Luke's expression. These two persons constituted really 
one and the same high priest. Add to this, as we are reminded by Wieseler, that the 
higher administration was then shared officially between two persons whom the Talmud 
always designates as distinct — the nasi, who presided over the Sanhedrin, and had 
the direction of public affairs ; and the high priest properly so called, who was at 
the head of the priests, and superintended matters of religion. Now it is very prob- 
able that the office of nasi at that time devolved upon Annas. We are led to this 
conclusion by the powerful influence which he exerted ; by the part which, accord- 
ing to John, he played in the trial of Jesus ; and by the passage, Acts 4 : 6, where he 
is found at the head of the Sanhedrin with the title of apxtepevS, while Caiaphas is 
only mentioned after him, as a simple member of this body. This separation of the 
office into two functions, which, united, bad constituted, in the regular way, the true 
and complete theocratic high-priesthood, was the commencement of its dissolution. 
And this is what Luke intends to express by this gen. sing. apxcepeoS. in apposition 
with two proper names. It is just as if he had written : " under the high priest An- 
nas- Caiaphas." Disorganization had penetrated beneath the surface of the political 
sphere (ver. 1), to the very heart of the theocracy. What a frame for the picture of 
the appearing of the Restorer ! The expression, the word came to John (lit. came 
upon), indicates a positive revelation, either by theophany or by vision, similar to 
that which served as a basis for the ministry of the ancient prophets : Moses, Ex. 3 ; 
Isaiah, chap. 6 ; Jeremiah, chap. 1 ; Ezekiel, chap. 1-3 ; comp. John 1 : 33, and see 
1 : 80. The word in the iciklerness expressly connects this portion with that last 
passage. 

2. Vers. 3-6.* The country about Jordan, in Luke, doubtless denotes the arid 
plains near the mouth of this river. The name wilderness of Judea, by which Mat- 
thew and Mark designate the scene of John's ministry, applies properly to the moun- 
tainous and broken country which forms the western boundary of the plain of the 
Jordan (toward the mouth of this river), and of the northern part of the basin of the 
Dead Sea "But as, according to them also, John was baptizing in Jordan, the wil- 
derness of Judea must necessarily have included in their view the lower course of the 
river. As to the rest, the expression he came into supposes, especially if with the 
Alex, we erase the tjjv, that John did not remain stationary, but went to and fro in 
the country. This hint of the Syn., especially in the form in which it occurs in 

* Ver. 3. A. B. L. Or. omit rrjv before -nepix^pov. Ver. 4. &. B. D. L. A. some 
Mnn. Syr cur . ItP leri <i u % omit leyovros. Ver. 5.*B. D. Z. some Mnn. It :lli ^. Or, read 
svBetaS instead of evBeiav. 



110 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

Luke, agrees perfectly with John 10 : 40, where the Persea is pointed out as the prin- 
cipal theatre of John's ministry. 

The rite of baptism, which consisted iu the plunging of the body more or less 
completely into water, was not at this period in use among the Jews, neither for the 
Jews themselves, for whom the law only prescribed lustrations, nor for proselytes 
from paganism, to whom, according to the testimony of history, baptism was not ap- 
plied until after the fall of Jerusalem. The very title Baptist, given to John, suffi- 
ciently proves that it was he who introduced this rite. This follows also from John 
1 : 25, where the deputation from the Sanhedrin asks him by what right he baptizes, if 
he is neither the Messiah nor one of the prophets, which implies that this rite was' 
introduced by him; and further, from John 3 : 26, where the disciples of John make it 
a charge against Jesus, that He adopted a ceremony of which the institution, and con- 
sequently, according to them, the monopoly, belonged to their master. Baptism was 
a humiliating rite for the Jews. It represented a complete purification ; it was, as 
it were, a lustration carried to the second power, which implied in him who accepted 
it not a few isolated faults so much as a radical defilement. So Jesus calls it (John 
3 : 5) a birth of water * Already the promise of clean water, and of a fountain opened 
for sin anduncleanness, in Ezekiel (36 : 25) and Zechariah (13 : 1), had the same mean- 
ing. The complement [xeravoioi;, of repentance, indicates the moral act which was to 
accompany the outward rite, and which gave it its value. This term indicates a com- 
plete change of mind. The object of this new institution is sin, which appears to the 
baptized in a new light. According to Matthew and Mark, this change was ex- 
pressed by a positive act which accompanied the baptism, the confession of their sins 
(k%ou,ol6yr]Gi<i), Baptism, like every divinely instituted ceremony, contained also a 
grace for him who observed it with the desired disposition. As Strauss puts it : if, 
on the part of man, it was a declaration of the renunciation of sin, on the part of 
God it was a declaration of the pardon of sins. The words for the pardon depend 
grammatically on the collective notion, baptism of repentance. 

According to ver. 4, the forerunner of the Messiah had a place in the prophetic 
picture by the side of the Messiah Himself. It is very generally taken for granted 
by modern interpreters, that the prophecy Isa. 40 : 1-11, applied by the three synoptics 
to the times of the Messiah and to John the Baptist, refers properly to the return 
from the exile, and pictures the entrance of Jehovah into the Holy Land at the head 
of His people. But is this interpretation really in accordance with the text of the 
prophet ? Throughout this entire passage of Isaiah the people are nowhere repre- 
sented as returning to their own country ; they are settled in their cities ; it is God 
who comes to them • " O Zion, get thee up into a high mountain . . . Lift up 
thy voice with strength ! Say to the cities of Judah, Behold your God !" (ver. 9). 
So far are the people from following in Jehovah's train, that, on the contrary, they 
are invited by the divine messenger to prepare, in the country where they dwell, the 
way by which Jehovah is to come to them : ' ' Prepare the way of the Lord . . . 
and His glory shall be revealed " (vers. 3 and 5). The desert to which the prophet 
compares the moral condition of the people is not that of Syria, which had to be 

* There is, to say the least, no need to connect our Lord's words with Baptism, 
when they have an adequate basis in the prophecies of the Old Testament. Ezek. 
(36 : 25, 26) connects " clean water" and^a " new heart," and in chap. 37 introduces 
the quickening spirit. His baptism had not yet been formulated, but Nicodemus 
ought to have known these things (John 3 : 10). — J. H. 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. Ill 

crossed in returning from Babylon, a vast plain in which there are neither mountains 
to level nor valleys to fill up. It is rather the uncultivated ^and rocky hill-country 
which surrounds the very city of Jerusalem, into which Jehovah is to make His entry 
as the Messiah. If, therefore, it is indeed the coming of Jehovah as Messiah which 
is promised in this passage (ver. 11, " He shall feed His flock like a shepherd . . 
He shall carry the lambs in His arms"), the herald who invites the people to prepare 
the way of His God is really the forerunner of the Messiah. The image is taken 
from an oriental custom, according to which the visit of a sovereign was preceded by 
the arrival of a courier, who called on all the people to make ready the road by which 
the monarch was to enter.* 

The text is literally : A voice of one crying / . . . There is no finishing verb ; 
it is an exclamation. The messenger is not named : his person is of so little conse- 
quence that it is lost in his message. The words in the desert may, in Hebrew, as in 
Greek, be taken either with what precedes : " cries in the desert," or with what fol- 
lows : " Prepare in the desert." It matters little : the order resounds wherever it is 
to be executed. Must we be satisfied with a general application of the details of the 
picture? or is it allowable to give a particular application to 'them — to refer, for in- 
stance, the mountains that must be levelled to the pride of the Pharisees ; the valleys 
to be filled up, to the moral and religious indifference of such as the Sadducees ; the 
• crooked places to be made straight, to the frauds and lying excuses of the publicans ; 
and lastly, the rough places, to the sinful habits found in all, even the best ? How- 
ever this may be, the general aim of the quotation is to exhibit repentance as the soul 
of John's baptism. It is probable that the plur. evBelas was early substituted for the 
sing. evQelav, to correspond with the plur. tu otco?ud. With this adj. 666v or bdovg 
must be understood. 

When once this moral change is accomplished, Jehovah will appear. Kal, and 
then, The Hebrew text is : " All flesh shall see the glory of God." The LXX. have 
translated it : " The glory of the Lord shall be seen (by the Jews?), and all flesh 
(including the heathen ?) shall see the salvation of God. " This paraphrase, borrowed 
from Isa. 52 : 10, proceeded perhaps from the repugnance which the translator felt to 
attribute to the heathen the sight of the glory of God, although he concedes to them 
a share in the salvation. This term salvation is preserved by Luke ; it suits the spirit 
of his Gospel. Only the end of the prophecy (vers. 5 and 6) is cited by Luke. The 
two other synoptics limit themselves to the first part ver. 4. It is remarkable that 
all three should apply to the Hebrew text and to that of the LXX. the same modifi- 
cation : rac rplftovS avrov, His paths, instead of rds -Tpl(3ov<; tov Qeov f/fiuv, the paths of 
our God. This fact has been used to prove the .dependence of two of the synoptics 
on the third. But the proof is not valid. As Weizsacker f remarks, this was one 
of the texts of which frequent use was made in the preaching of the Messiah ; and it 
was customary, in applying the passage to the person of the Messiah, to quote it in 
this form. If Luke had, in this section, one of the two other synoptics before him, 
how could he have omitted all that refers to the dress and mode of life of the fore- 
runner ? 

3. Vers. 7-17. The following discourse must not be regarded as a particular 
specimen of the preaching, the substance of which Luke has transmitted to us. It is 

* Lowth, " Isaiah," libers, v. Koppe, ii. p. 207, 
f " Untersuchungen," p.-24, note. 



112 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

a summary of all the discourses of John the Baptist during the period that preceded 
the baptism of Jesus. The imperf. elsysv, he used to say, clearly indicates Luke's 
intention. This sumnlary contains — 1. A call to repentance, founded on the impend- 
ing Messianic judgment (vers. 7-9) ; 2. Special practical directions for each class of 
hearers (vers. 10-14) ; 3. The announcement of the speedy appearance of the Messiah 
(vers. 15-17). 

Vers. 7-9. " Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized 
of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to 
come ? 8. Bring forth, therefore, fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say 
within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father ; for I say unto you, that 
God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. 9. And now also 
the axe is laid unto the root of the trees ; every tree therefore which bringeth not 
forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." What a stir would be pro- 
duced at the present day by the preaching of a man, who, clothed with the authority 
of holiness, should proclaim with power the speedy coming of the Lord, and His 
impending judgment ! Such was the appearance of John in Israel. The expression 
that came forth (ver. 7) refers to their leaving inhabited places to go into the desert 
(comp. vii. 24). In Matthew it is a number of Pharisees and Sadducees that are 
thus accosted. In that Gospel, the reference is to a special case, as the aor. elnev, 
he said to them, shows. But for all this it may have been, as Luke gives us to un- 
derstand, a topic on which John ordinarily expatiated to his hearers. The reproachful 
address, generation of vipers, expresses at once their wickedness and craft. John 
compares these multitudes who come to his baptism, because they regard it as a cere- 
mony that is to insure their admission into the Messianic kingdom, to successive 
broods of serpents coming forth alive from the body of their dam. This severe term 
is opposed to the title children of Abraham, and appears even to allude to another 
father, whom Jesus expressly names in another place (John 8 : 37-44). Keim observes, 
with truth, that this figurative language of John (comp. the following images, stones, 
trees) is altogether the language of the desert.* What excites such lively indignation 
in the forerunner, is to see people trying to evade the duty of repentance by means 
of its sign, by baptism performed as an opus operatum. In this deception he per- 
ceives the suggestion of a- more cunning counsellor than the heart of man. 'Yirodel- 
KWfii : to address advice to the ear, to suggest. The choice of this term excludes 
Meyer's sense : " Who has reassured you, persuading you that your title children of 
Abraham would preserve you from divine wrath V ' The wrath to come is the Mes- 
siah's judgment. The Jews made it fall solely on the heathen ; John makes it come 
down on the head of the Jews themselves. 

Therefore (ver. 8) refers to the necessity of a sincere repentance, resulting from 
the question in ver. 7. The fruits worthy of repentance are not the Christian disposi- 
tions flowing from faith ; they are those acts of justice, equity, and humanity, enu- 
merated vers. 10-14, the conscientious practice of which leads a man to faith (Acts 
10 : 35). But John fears that the moment their conscience begins to be aroused, they 
will immediately soothe it, by reminding themselves that they are children of Abra- 
ham. M^ aptjijode, literally, " do not begin . . ." that is to say : " As soon as 
my voice awakens you, do not set about saying . . ." The p% dofyre, do not 

* Winer, " Realworterbuch," on Jericho : " This place might have passed for a 
paradise, apart from the venomous serpents found there." The trees along the 
course of the Jordan, 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 113 

think, in Matthew, indicates an illusory claim. On the abuse of this title by the 
Jews, see John 8 : 33-39, Rom. 4 : 1, Jas. 2 : 21. It is to the posterity of Abraham, 
doubtless, that the promises are made, but the resources of God are not limited. 
Should Israel prove wanting, with a word He can create for Himself a new people. 
In saying, of these stones, John points with his finger to the stones of the desert or on 
the river banks. This warning is too solemn to be only an imaginary supposition. 
John knew the prophecies ; he was not ignorant that Moses and Isaiah had announced 
the rejection of Israel and the calling of the Gentiles. It is by this threatening pros- 
pect that he endeavors to stir up the zeal of his contemporaries. This word con- 
tained in germ the whole teaching of St. Paul on the contrast between the carnal 
and the spiritual posterity of Abraham developed in Rom. 9 and Gal. 3. In Deu- 
teronomy the circumcision of the flesh had already been similarly contrasted with 
the circumcision of the heart (30 : 6). 

In vers. 7 and 8 Israel is reminded of the incorruptible holiness of the judgment 
awaiting them; ver. 9 proclaims it at hand. "Htfy deicai: " andmow also." The 
image is that of an orchard full of fruit-trees. An invisible axe is laid at the trunk 
of every tree. This figure is connected with that of the fruits (ver. 8). At the first 
signal, the axe will bury itself in the trunks of the barren trees ; it will cut them 
down to the very roots. It is the emblem of the Messianic judgment. It applies at 
once to the national downfall and the individual condemnation, two notions which 
are not yet distinct in the mind of John. This fulminating address completely irri- 
tated the rulers, who hac[ been willing at one time to come and hear him ; from this 
time they broke all connection with John and his baptism. This explains the pas- 
sage (Luke 7 : 30) in which Jesus declares that the rulers refused to be baptized. This 
rejection of John's ministry bj' the official authorities is equally clear from Matt. 
21 : 25 : " If we say, Of God ; he will say, Why then did ye not believe on him?" 
The proceeding of the Sanhedrim, John 1 : 19 et seq., proves the same thing. 

Vers. 10-14.* But what then, the people ask, are those fruits of repentance 
which should accompany baptism ? And, seized with the fear of judgment, differ- 
ent classes of hearers approach John to obtain from him special directions, fitted to 
their particular social position. . It is the confessional after preaching. This char- 
acteristic fragment is wanting in Matthew and Mark. Whence has Luke obtained 
it ? From some oral or written source. But this source could not, it is evident, 
contain simply the five verses which follow ; it must have been a narrative of the 
entire ministry of John. Luke therefore possessed, on this ministry as a whole, a 
different document from the other two Syn. In this way we can explain the marked 
differences of detail which we have observed between his writing and Matthew's : 
he says, instead of he was saying, ver. 7 ; do not begin, instead of think not, ver. 8. 

The imperf., asked, signifies that those questions of conscience were frequent! y 
repeated (comp. eAeyev, ver. 7). To a similar question St. Peter replied (Acts 2 : 37) 
very differently. This was because the kingdom of God had come. The forerunner 

* Ver. 10. Almost all the Mjj., Tcoitjou/uev instead of Troirjoopev, which is the read- 
ing of T. R., with G. K. U. and many Mnn. Ver. 11. a. B. C. L. X. some Mnn., 
eAeyev instead of Aeyet. Ver. 12. Almost all the Mjj., ttoltiooixev instead of irocrjcofzev, 
which is the reading of T. R., with G. U. and many Mnn. Ver. 13. &* omits 
ei-ev TrpoS civtovS. Ver. 14. C. D. It alic i., eTrrjpurijaav instead of emjpuruv. Almost all 
the Mjj., noLijaufiev instead of Tronjaofiev, which A. G. K. V. and many Mnn. read. 
8* II. Syr. , ixrj6eva before avKo^avrrjarire, instead of /^e, which T, R. with all the other 
documents read, 



114 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 4 

contents himself with requiring the works fitted to prepare his hearers—those works 
of moral rectitude and benevolence which are in conformity with the law written in 
the heart, and which attest the sincerity of the horror of evil professed in baptism, 
and that earnest desire after good which Jesus so often declares to be the true prep- 
aration for faith (John 3 : 21). In vain does hypocrisy give itself to the practice of 
devotion ; it is on moral obligation faithfully acknowledged and practised that the 
blessing depends which leads men to salvation. There is some hesitation in the form 
Tvoiyaufxev (deliberative subj.) ; the future noiTjooixEv indicates a decision taken. Yer. 
13. Updaaeiv, exact; the meaning is, no overcharge ! Who are the soldiers, ver. 14? 
Certainly not the Roman soldiers of the garrison of Judaea. Perhaps military in the 
service of Antipas king of Galilee ; for they came also from this country to John's 
baptism. More probably armed men, acting as police in Judaea. Thus the term 
GVKo<pavrelv admits of a natural interpretation. It signifies etymologically those who 
denounced the exporters of figs (out of Attica), and is applied generally to those who 
play the informer. ^Laaelev appears to be connected with the Latin word concutere, 
whence comes also our word concussion, These arp unjust extortions on the part of 
subordinates. The reading of 2*. H. Pesch., firjSeva, does not deserve the honor Tisch- 
endorf has accorded to it of admitting it into his text. When all the people shall in 
this way have made ready the way of the Lord, they will be that prepared people of 
whom the angel spoke to Zacharias (1 : 17), and the Lord will be able to bring salva- 
tion to them (3 : 6). 

Yers. 15-17.* " And as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in 
their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ or not ; 16. John answered, saying 
unto them all : I indeed baptize you with water ; but one mightier than I cometh, 
the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose : He shall baptize you with 
the Holy Ghost, and with tire : 17 Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly 
purge His floor, and will gather Ihe wheat into His garner ; but the chaff He will 
burn with fire unquenchable." This portion is common to the three Syn. But the 
preamble, ver. 15, is peculiar to Luke. It is a brief and striking sketch of the gen- 
eral excitement and lively expectation awakened by John's ministry. The anaoLv of 
the T. R. contains the idea of a solemn gathering ; but this scene is not the same as 
that of John 1 : 19, et seq., which did not take place till after the baptism of Jesus. 
In his answer John asserts two things : first, that he is not the Messiah ; second, 
that the Messiah is following him close at hand. The art 6 before lax v p6repos denotes 
this personage as expected. To unloose the sandals of the master when he came in 
(Luke and Mark), or rather to bring them to him {fiaordoaL, ]V£att.) when he was dis- 
posed to go out, was the duty of the lowest class of slaves. Mark expresses its menial 
character in a dramatic way : Kvipaq Ivaai, to stoop down and unloose. Each evangelist 
has thus his own shade of thought. If one of them had copied from the other, these 
changes, which would be at once purposed and insignificant, would be puerile. 
'I/cavof may be applied either to physical or intellectual capacity, or to moral dignity. 
It is taken in the latter sense here. The pronoun avrds brings out prominently the 
personality of the Messiah. The preposition ev, which had not been employed before 
vSan, is added before irvevfzari ; the Spirit cannot be treated as a simple means. One 

* 

* Yer. 16. &. B. L., naciv instead of anaaiv. Yer. 17. $* B. a. e. Heracleon, 
dtaicadapcu instead of kcil (hafcaBapui, which is the reading of T. R., with all the other 
Mjj. and all the Mnn, IS* B, e., cwayayeiv instead of owafrt, which all the others 
read. 



COMMEKTAKY OK ST. LUKE. 115 

baptizes with water, but not with the Spirit. If the pardon granted in the baptism of 
water was not followed by the baptism of the Spirit, sin would soon regain the upper 
hand, and the pardon would be speedily annulled (Matt. 18 : 23-25). But let the 
baptism of the Spirit be added to the baptism of water, and then the pardon is con- 
firmed by the renewal of the heart and life. Almost all' modern interpreters apply 
the term fire to the consuming ardor of the judgment, according to ver. 17, the fire 
which is not quenched. But if there was such a marked contrast between the two 
expressions Spirit and fire, the preposition h must have been repeated before the 
latter. Therefore there can only be a shade of difference between these two terms. 
The Spirit and fire both denote the same divine principle, but in two different rela- 
tions with human nature : the first, inasmuch as taking possession of all in the nat- 
ural man that is fitted to enter into the kingdom of God, and consecrating it to this 
end ; the second — the image of fire is introduced on account of its contrariness to the 
water of baptism— inasmuch as consuming everything in the old nature that is out of 
harmony with the divine kingdom, and destined to perish. The Spirit, in this latter 
relation, is indeed the principle of judgment, but of an altogether internal judgment. 
It is the fire symbolized on the day of Pentecost. As to the fire of ver. 17, it is 
expressly opposed to that of ver. 16 by the epithet acfieoTov, which is not quenched. 
Whoever refuses to be baptized with the fire of holiness, will be exposed to the fire 
of wrath. Comp. a similar transition, but in an inverse sense, Mark 9 : 48, 49. John 
had said, shall baptize you (ver. 16). Since this you applied solely to the' penitent it 
contained the idea of a sifting process going on among the people. This sifting is 
described in the seventeenth verse. The threshing-floor among the ancients was an 
uncovered place, where the corn, spread out upon the hardened ground, was trodden 
by oxen, which were sometimes yoked to a sledge. The straw was burned upon the 
spot ; the corn was gathered into the garner. This garner, in John's thought, repre- 
sents the Messianic kingdom, the Church in fact, the earliest historical form of this 
kingdom, into which all believing Israelites will be gathered. Jewish presumption 
made the line of demarcation which, separates the elect from the condemned pass 
between Israel and the Gentiles ; John makes it pass across the theocracy itself, of 
which the threshing-floor is the symbol. This is the force of the Std in SianaBapLel. 
Jesus expresses Himself in exactly the same sense, John 3 : 18, et seq. The judgment 
of the nation and of the individual are here mingled together, as in ver. 9 ; behind the 
national chastisement of the fall of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the people, is 
placed in the background the judgment of individuals, under another dispensation. 
The readings dianaOdpai, and awayayelv, in order to purify, in order to gather, cannot 
be admitted. They rather weaken the force of this striking passage ; the authority 
of &. B. and of the two documents of the Italic are not sufficient ; lastly, the future 
KaTanavcEi, which must be in opposition to a preceding future (6e), comes in too 
abruptly. The pronoun avrov, twice repeated ver. 17 (His threshing-floor, His garner), 
leaves no doubt about the divine dignity which John attributed to the Messiah. The 
theocracy belongs to Jehovah. Comp. the expression, His temple, Mai. 3:1. 

4. Vers. 18-20.* — "We find here one of those general surveys such as we have in 
1 : 66, 80 ; 2 : 40, 52. For the third time the lot of the forerunner becomes the pre- 
lude to that of the Saviour. The expression many other things (ver. 18) confirms what 

* Ver. 19. The T. R, with A. C. K. X. n. many Mnn. Syr., adds, before rov 
a(h?.(pov, ^lThittzov, which is omitted by 16 Mjj. 120 Mnn. It. Vg. (taken from Mat- 
thew). Ver. 20. &* B. D. X. It alil >. omit aai before irpooeBrjKe. 



116 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE, 

was already indicated by the imperf. lie used to say (ver. 7), that Luke only intends to 
give a summary of John's preaching. The term Tie evangelized (a literal translation) 
refers to the Messianic promises which his discourses contained (vers. 16 and 17), and 
the true translation of this verse appears to me to be this : " while addressing these 
and many other exhortations to the people, he announced to them the glad tidings." 
Ver. 19,. Herod Antipas, the sovereign of Galilee, is the person already mentioned 
in ver. 1. The word ^ilin-Kov, rejected by important authorities, is probably a gloss 
derived from Matthew. The first husband of Herodias was called Herod. He has 
no other name in Josephus. He lived as a private individual at Jerusalem. But per- 
haps he also bore the surname of Philip, to distinguish him from Herod Antipas. 
The brother of Antipas, who was properly called Philip, is the tetrarch of ltursea 
(3 : 1). The ambitious Herodias had abandoned her husband to marry Antipas, who 
for love of her sent away his first wife, a daughter of Aretas king of Arabia ; this act 
drew him into a disastrous war. 

Luke's expression indicates concentrated indignation. In order to express the 
energy of the km naoiv, we must say : to crown all . . . The form of the phrase 
TcpoceQrjKE ndi kcltekIeloe is based on a well-known Hebraism, and proves that this nar- 
rative of Luke's is derived from an Aramaean document. This passage furnishes 
another proof that Luke draws upon an independent source ; he separates himself, in 
fact, from the two other synoptics, by mentioning the imprisonment of John the 
Baptist here, instead of referring it to a later period, as Matthew and Mark do, syn- 
chronizing it with the return of Jesus into Galilee after His baptism (Matt. 4 : 12 ; 
Mark 1 : 14). He thereby avoids the chronological error committed by the two other 
Syn., and rectified by John (3 : 24). This notice is brought in here by anticipation, 
as the similar notices, 1 : 66& and 80&. It is intended to explain the sudden end of 
John's ministry, and serves as a stepping-stone to the narrative 7 : 18, where John 
sends from his prison two of his disciples to Jesus. 

The fact of John the Baptist's ministry is authenticated by the narrative of 
Josephus. This historian speaks of it at some" length when describing the marriage 
of Herod Antipas with Herodias. After relating the defeat of Herod's army by 
Aretas, the father of his first wife, Josephus (Antiq. xviii. 5. 1, 2) continues thus: 
" This disaster was attributed by many of the Jews to the displeasure of God, who 
smote Herod for the murder of John, surnamed the Baptist ; for Herod had put to 
death this good man, who exhorted the Jews to the practice of virtue, inviting them 
to come to'his baptism, and bidding them act with justice toward each other, and 
with piety toward God ; for their baptism would please God if they did not use it to 
justify themselves from any sin they had committed, but to obtain purity of body 
after their souls had been previously purified by righteousness. And when a great 
multitude of people came to him, and were deeply moved by his discourses, Herod, 
fearing lest he might use his influence to urge them to revolt — for he well knew that 
they would do. whatever he advised them— thought that the best course for him to 
take was to put him to death before he attempted anything of the kind. So he put 
him in chains, and sent him to the castle of Machaerus, and there put him to death. 
The Jews, therefore, were convinced that his army was destroyed as a punishment 
for this murder, God being incensed against Herod." This account, while altogether 
independent of the evangelist's, confirms it in all the essential points : the extraor- 
dinary appearance of this person of such remarkable sanctity ; the rite of baptism 
introduced by him; his surname, the Baptist; John's protest against the use ^ of 
baptism as a mere opus operatum ; his energetic exhortations; the general excite- 
ment ; the imprisonment and murder of John ; and further, the criminal marriage of 
Herod, related in what precedes. By the side of these essential points, common to 
the two narratives, there are some secondary differences : " First. Josephus makes no 



COMMESTTAKY OK ST. LUKE. 117 

mention of the Messianic element in the preaching of John. But in this there is 
nothing surp-ising. This silence proceeds from the same cause as that which he ob- 
serves respecting the person of Jesus. He who could allow himself to apply the 
Messianic prophecies to Vespasian, would necessarily try to avoid everything in con- 
temporaneous history that had reference either to the forerunner, as such, or to Jesus. 
Weizsaoker rightly observes that the narrative of Josephus, so far from invalidating 
that of Luke on this point, confirms it. For it is evident that apart from its con- 
nection with the expectation of the Messiah, the baptism of John would not have 
produced that general excitement which excited the fears of Herod, and which is 
proved by the account of Josephus. Second. According to Luke, the determining 
cause of John's imprisonment was the resentment of Herod at the rebukes of the 
Baptist ; while, according to Josephus, the motive for this crime was the fear of a 
political outbreak. But it is easy to conceive that the cause indicated by Luke would 
not be openly avowed, and that it .was unknown in the political circles where Jose- 
phus gathered his information. Herod and his counsellors put forward, as is usual 
in such cases, the reason of- state. The previous revolts — those which immediately 
followed the death of Herod, and that which Judas the Gaulonite provoked — only 
justified too well the fears which they affected to feel. In any case, if, on account of 
this general agreement, we were willing to admit that one of the two historians made 
use of the other, it is not Luke that we should regard a3 the copyist ; for the 
Aramaean forms of his narrative indicate a source independent of that of Josephus. 

The higher origin of this ministry of John is proved by the two following charac- 
teristics, which are inexplicable from a purely natural point of view : First, His con- 
nection so emphatically announced, with the immediate appearance of the Messiah ; 
second, The abdication of John, when at the height of his popularity, in favor of the 
poor Galilean, who was as yet unknown to all, As to the originality of John's 
baptism, the lustrations used in the oriental religions, in Judaism itself, and partic- 
ularly among the Essenes, have been alleged against it. But this originality con- 
sisted les3 in the outward form of the rite, than — t. In its application to the whole 
people, thus pronounced defiled, and placed on a level with the heathen ; and 2. In 
the preparatory relation established by the forerunner between this imperfect baptism 
aud that fiual baptism which the Messiah was about to confer. 

We think it useful to give an example here of the way in which Holtzmann tries 
to explain the composition of our Gospel : 

1. Vers. 1-6 are borrowed from source A. (the original Mark) ; only Luke leaves 
out the details respecting the ascetic life of John the Baptist, because he intends to 
give his discourses at greater length ; he compensates for this omission by adding the 
chronological data (vers. 1 and 2), and by extending the quotation from the LXX. 
(vers. 5 and 6) ! 2. Vers. 7-9 are also taken from A., just as are the parallel verses 
in Matthew ; they were left out by the author of our canonical Mark, whose inten- 
tion was to give only an abdridgment of the discourses. 3. Vers. 10-14 are taken 
from a private source, peculiar to Luke. Are we then to suppose that this source 
contained only these four verses, since Luke has depended on other sources for all the 
rest of his matter? 4. Vers. 15-17 are composed (a) of a sketch of Luke's invention 
(ver. 15) ; (b) of an extract from A. , vers. 16, 17. 5. Vers. 18-20 have been compiled 
on the basis of a fragment of A., which is found in Mark 6 : 17-29, a summary of 
which Luke thought should be introduced here. Do we not thus fall into that pro- 
cess of manufacture which Schleiermacher ridiculed so happily in his work on the 
composition of Luke, d propos of Eichhorn's hypothesis, a method which we thought 
had disappeared from criticism for ever ? 

SECOND NARRATIVE. — CHAP. 3 : 21, 22. 

The Baptism of Jesus. 

The relation between John and Jesus, as described by St. Luke, resembles that of 
two stars following each other at a short distance, and both passing through a series 
of similar circumstances. The announcement of the appearing of the one follows close 
upon that of the appearing of the other. It is the same with their two births. This 



118 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

relation repeats itself in the commencement of their respective ministries ; and lastly, 
•in the catastrophes which terminate their lives. And yet, in the whole course of the 
career of these two men, there was but one personal meeting — at the baptism of Jesus. 
After this moment, when one of these stars rapidly crossed the orbit of the other, 
they separated, each to follow the path that was marked out for him. It is this 
moment of their actual contact that tbe evangelist is about to describe. 

Vers. 21 and 22.* This narrative of the baptism is the sequel, not to vers. 18, 19 
(the imprisonment of John), which are an anticipation, but to the passage, vers. 15-17, 
which describes the expectation of the people, and relates the Messianic prophecy of 
John. The expression uTvavra tov ?mov, all the 'people, ver. 21, recalls the crowds 
and popular feeling described in ver. 15. But Meyer is evidently wrong in seeing in 
these words, " "When all the people were baptized," a proof that all this crowd was 
present at the baptism of Jesus. The term all the people, in such a connection, would 
be a strange exaggeration. Luke merely means to indicate the general agreement in 
time between this movement and the baptism of Jesus ; and the expression he uses 
need not in any way prevent our thinking that Jesus was alone, or almost alone, with 
the forerunner, when the latter baptized Him. Further, it is highly probable that He 
would choose a time when the transaction might take place in this manner. But 
the turn of expression, h tw fiaK-icQyvai, expresses more than the simultaneous- 
ness of the two facts ; it places them in moral connection with each other. In being 
baptized, Jesus surrenders Himself to the movement which at this time was drawing 
all the people toward God. Had He acted otherwise, would He not have broken the 
bond of solidarity which He had contracted, by circumcision, with Israel, and by the 
incarnation, with all mankind ? So far from being relaxed, this bond is to be drawn 
closer, until at last it involve Him who has entered into it in the full participation of 
our condemnation and death. This relation of the baptism of the nation to that of 
Jesus explains also the singular turn of expression which Luke makes use of in men- 
tioning the fact of the baptism. This act, which one would have thought would 
have been the very pith of the narrative, is indicated by means of a simple participle, 
and in quite an incidental way : " When all the people were baptized, Jesus also be- 
ing baptized, and praying . . ." Luke appears to mean that, granted the national 
baptism, that of Jesus'follows as a matter of course. It is the moral consequence of 
the former. This turn of thought is not without its importance in explaining the fact 
which we are now considering. Luke adds here a detail which is peculiar to him, 
and which serves to place the miraculous phenomena which follow in their true light. 
At the time when Jesus, having been baptized, went up out of the water, He was in 
prayer. The extraordinary manifestations about to be related thus become God's 
answer to the prayer of Jesus, in which the sighs of His people and of mankind found 
utterance. The earth is thirsty for the rain of heaven. The Spirit will descend on 
Him who knows how to ask it effectually ; and it will be His office to impart it to all 
the rest. If, afterward, we hear Him saying (11 : 9), "Ask, and it shall be given 
you ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened to you," we know from 
what personal experience He derived this precept : at the Jordan He Himself first 
asked and received, sought and found, knocked and it was opened to Him. 

The heavenly manifestation. Luke assigns these miraculous facts to the domain 

* Ver. 22. &. B. D. L., og instead of oaei. &. B. D. L. ItP leri <iue ? om it Xeyovcav. 
D. It ali i. Justin, and some other Fathers, read, viog fiov si av, eyu crjuepov ysyEvvrjKa 
oe, ev cot, etc. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 119 

of objective reality : the heavens opened, the Spirit descended. Mark makes them a 
personal intuition of Jesus :* " And coming up out of the water. He saw the heavens 
opened, and the Spirit descending" (1 : 10). Matthew corresponds with Mark; for 
Bleek is altogether wrong in maintaining that this evangelist makes the whole scene a 
vision of John the Baptist. The text does not allow of the two verbs, He went up 
and He saw, which follow each other so closely (Matt. 3 : 16), having two different 
subjects. Bleek alleges the narrative of the fourth Guspel, where also the forerun- 
ner speaks merely of what he saw himself. But that is natural ; fur in that passage 
his object was, not to relate the fact, but simply to justify the testimony whieh he 
had just borne. For this purpose he could only mention what he had seen himself. 
No inference can be drawn from this as to the fact itself, and its relation to Jesus, 
the other witness. Speaking generally, the scene of the baptism does not fall within 
the horizon of the fourth Gospel, whieh starts from a point of time six weeks after 
this event took place. Keim has no better ground than this for asserting that the 
accounts of the Syn. on this subject are contradictory to that of John, because the 
former attribute an external realitjr to^ these miraculous phenomena, while the latter 
treats them as a simple vision of the forerunner, and even, according to him, exeludes 
the reality of the baptism. f The true relation of these accounts to each other is this : 
According to the fourth Gospel, John saw ; according to the first and second, Jesus 
saw. Now, as two persons can hardly be under an hallucination at the same time 
and in the same manner, this double perception supposes a reality, and this reality is 
affirmed by Luke : And it came to pass, that . . . 

The divine manifestation comprises three internal facts, and three corresponding 
sensible phenomena. The three former are the divine communication itself ; the 
three latter are the manifestation of this communication to the consciousness of Jesus 
and of John. Jesus was a true man, consisting, that is, at once of body and soul. 
In order, therefore, to take complete possession of Him, God had to speak at once to 
His outward and inward sense. As to John, he shared, as an official witness of the 
spiritual fact, the sensible impression which accompanied this communication from on 
high to the mind of Jesus. The first phenomenon is the opening of the heavens. While 
Jesus is praying, with His eyes fixed on high, the vault of heaven is rent before His 
gaze, and His glance penetrates the abode of eternal light. The spiritual fact con- 
tained under this sensible phenomenon is the perfect understanding accorded to Jesus 
of God's plan in the work of salvation. The treasures of divine wisdom are opened 
to Him, and He may thenceforth obtain at any hour the particular enlightenment He 
may need. The meaniug of this first phenomenon is therefore perfect revelation. 
From the measureless heights of heaven above, thus laid open to His gaze, Jesus 
seen descend a luminous appearance, having the form of a dove. This emblem is taken 
from a natural symbolism. The fertilizing and persevering incubation of the dove 
is an admirable type of the life giving energy whereby the Holy Spirit develops in 
the human soul the germs of a new life. It is in this way that the new creation, 
deposited with all its powers in the soul of Jesus, is to extend itself around Him, 
under the influence of this creative principle (Gen. 1 : 2). By the organic form 
which invests the luminous ray, the Holy Spirit is here presented in its absolute 
totality. At. Pentecost the Holy Spirit appears under the form of divided (diafiepi£6- 

* For the meaning of the author in this sentence, see the close of the. paragraph. 
By itself it might be misunderstood. — J. H. 
t "Gesch.Jesu,"t. i. p. 535. 



120 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

fievai) tongues of fire, emblems of special gifts, of particular x a P' l(T f iaTa , shared 
among the disciples. But in the baptism of Jesus it is not a portion only, it is the 
fulness of the Spirit which is given. This idea could only be expressed by a symbol 
taken from organic life. John the Baptist understood this emblem : " For God giveth 
not," he says (John 3 : 34), " the Spirit by measure unto Him." The vibration of the 
luminous ray on the head of Jesus, like the fluttering of the wings of a dove, denotes 
the permanence of the gift. " I saw," says John the Baptist (John 1 : 32), " the 
Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon Him." This luminous 
appearance, then, represents an inspiration which is neither partial as that of the 
faithful, nor intermittent as that of the prophets — perfect inspiration. The third 
phenomenon, that of the divine voice, represents a still more intimate and personal 
communication. Nothing is a more direct emanation from the personal life than 
speech, the voice. The voice of God resounds in the ear and heart of Jesus, and 
reveals to Him all that He is to God — the Being most tenderly beloved, beloved as a 
father's only son ; and consequently all that He is called to be to the world— the organ 
of divine love to men, He whose mission it is to raise His brethren to the dignity of 
sons. According to Luke, and probably Mark also (in conformity with the reading 
admitted by Tischendorf), the divine declaration is addressed to Jesus : " Thou art 
my Son . . . ; in Thee I am . . . " In Matthew it has the form of a testimony 
addressed to a third party touching Jesus : " This is my Son . . . in whom 
. . ." The first form is that in which God spoke to Jesus ; the second, that in 
which John became conscious of the divine manifestation. This difference attests 
that the two accounts are derived from different sources, and that the writings in 
which they are preserved are independent of each other. What writer would have 
deliberately changed the form of a saying which he attributed to God Himself ? The 
pronoun ov, Thou, as well as the predicate ayamjToi, with the article, the icell- 
beloved, invest this filial relation with a character that is altogether unique; comp. 
10 : 22. From this moment Jesus must have felt Himself the supreme object of the 
love of the infinite God. The unspeakable blessedness with which such an assurance 
could not fail to fill Him was the source of the witness He bore concerning Himself 
— a witness borne not for His own glory, but with a view to reveal to the world the 
love wherewilh God loves those to whom He imparts such a gift. From this moment 
dates the birth of that unique consciousness Jesus had of God as His own Father — the 
rising of that radiant sun which henceforth illuminates His life, and which since 
Pentecost has risen upon mankind. Just as, by the instrumentality of His Word and 
Spirit, God communicates to believers, when the hour has come, the certainty of 
their adoption, so answering both inwardly and outwardly the pra} r er of Jesus, He 
raises Him in His human consciousness to a sense of His dignity as the only-begotten 
Son. It is on the strength of this revelation that John, who shared it, says after- 
ward, "The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hands" (John 
8 : 25). The absence of the title Christ in the divine salutation is remaikable. We 
see that the principal fact in the development of the consciousness of Jesus was not 
the feeling of His Messianic dignity, but of His close and personal relation with God 
(comp. already 2 : 49), and of His divine origin. On that alone was based His con- 
viction of His Messianic mission. The religious fact was first ; the official part was 
only its corollary. M. Renan has reversed this relation, and it is the capital defect of 
his work. The quotation of the words of Ps. 2, " To-day have I begotten Thee" 
which Justin introduces into the divine salutation, is only supported by D. and some 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 121 

mss. of the Italic. It contrasts with the simplicity of the narrative. God does not 
quote Himself textually in this way ! The Cantabrigiensis swarms with similar 
interpolations which have not the slightest critical value. It is easy to understand 
how this quotation, affixed at an early period as a marginal gloss, should have found 
its way into the text of some documents ; but it would be difficult to account for its 
suppression in such a large number of others, had it originally formed part of the 
text. Justin furnishes, besides, in this very narrative of the baptism, several apoc- 
ryphal additions. 

By means of a perfect revelation, Jesus contemplates the plan of God. Perfect 
inspiration gives Him strength to realize it. From the consciousness of His dignity 
as Son He derives the assurance of His being the supreme ambassador of God, called 
to accomplish this task. These were the positive conditions of His ministry. 

THE BAPTISM OF JESUS. 

We shall examine— ls^. The baptism itself ; 2d. The marvellous circumstances 
which accompanied it ; 3d. The different accounts of this fact. 

1st The Meaning of the Baptism.— 'Here two closely connected questions present 
themselves : What was the object of Jesus in seeking baptism ? What took place 
within Him when tbe rite was performed ? 

To the former question Strauss boldly replies : the baptism of Jesus was an 
avowal on His part of defilement, and a means of obtaining divine pardon. This 
explanation contradicts all the declarations of Jesus respecting Himself. If there is 
any one feature that marks His life, and completely separates it from all others, it is 
the entire absence of remorse and of the need of personal forgiveness. According to 
ISchleiermacher, {Jesus desired to indorse the preaching of John, and obtain from him 
consecration to His Messianic ministry. But there had been no relation indicated 
beforehand between the baptism of water and the mission of the Messiah, nor was 
any such known to the people ; and since baptism was generally understood as a con- 
fession of defilement, it would rather appear incompatible with this supreme theo- 
cratic dignity. Weizsacker, Keim, and others see in it a personal engagement on the 
part of Jesus to consecrate Himself to the service of holiness. This is just the pre- 
vious opinion shorn of the Messianic notion, since these writers shrink from attribut- 
ing to Jesus thus early, a fixed idea of His Messianic dignity. It is certain that bap- 
tism was a vow of moral purity on the part of him who submitted to it. But the 
form of the rite implies not only the notion of progress in holiness, but also that of 
the removal of actual defilement ; which is incompatible with the idea which these 
authors have themselves formed of the person of Jesus. Lange sees in this act the 
iuilication of Jesus' guiltless participation in the collective defilement of maukind, by 
virtue of the solidarity of the race, and a voluntary engagement to deliver Himself 
up to death for the salvation of the world. This idea contains substantially .the truth. 
We would express it thus : In presenting Himself for baptism, Jesus had to make, as 
others did, His eio/noTioyijaig, His confession of sins.* Of .what sins, if not of 
those of His people and of the world in general ? He placed before John a striking 
picture of them, not with that pride and scorn with which the Jews spoke of the sins 

* Matthew (3 : 6) and Mark (1 : 7) : " And they were baptized by him in Jordan, 
confessing their sins. ' ' 



122 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

of the heathen, and the Pharisees of the sins of the publicans, but with the humble 
and compassionate tones of an Isaiah (chap. 63), a Daniel (chap. 9), or a Nehe- 
miah (chap. 9, when they confessed the miseries of their people, as if the burden 
were their own. He could not have gone down into the water after such an act of 
communion with our misery, unless resolved to give Himself up entirely to the work 
of putting an end to the reign of sin. But He did not content Elimself with making 
a vow. He prayed, the text tells us ; He besought God for all that He needed for the 
accomplishment of this great task, to take away tlie sin of the world. He asked for 
wisdom, for spiritual strength, and particularly for the solution of the mystery which 
family records, the Scriptures, and His own holiness had created about His person. 
We can understand how John, after hearing Him confess and pray thus, should say, 
" Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world !" This is what 
Jesus did by presenting Himself for baptism. 

"What took place within Him during the performance of the rite ? According to 
Schleiermacher, nothing at all. He kuew that He was the Messiah, and, by virtue 
of His previous development, He already possessed every qualification for His work. 
John, His forerunner, was merely apprised of his vocation, and rendered capable of 
proclaiming it. Weizsacker, Keim, and others admit something more. Jesus became 
at this time conscious of His redemptive mission. It was on the banks of the Jordan 
that the grand resolve was formed ; there Jesus felt Himself at once the man of God 
and the man of His age ; there John silently shared in His solemn vow ; and there 
the " God wills it" sounded through these two elect souls.* Lastly, Gess and several 
others think they must admit, besides a communication of strength from above, the 
gift of the Holy Spirit, but solely as a spirit of ministry, in view of the charge He was 
about to fulfil. These ideas, although just, are insufficient,. The texts are clear. If 
Jesus was revealed to John, it was because He was revealed to Himself ; and this 
revelation could not have taken place without being accompanied by a new gift. 
This gift could not refer to His work simply ; for in an existence such as His, in 
which all was spirit and life, it was impossible to make a mechanical separation be- 
tween work and life. The exercise of the functions of His office was an emanation 
from His life, and iu some respects the atmosphere of His very personality. His 
entrance upon the duties of His office must therefore have coincided with an advance 
in the development of His personal life. Does not the power of giving imply pos- 
session in a different sense from that which holds when this power is as yet unexer- 
cised ? Further, our documents, accepting the humanity of Jesus more thoroughly 
than our boldest theologians, overstep the bounds at which they stop. According to 
them, Jesus really received, not certainly as Cerinthus, going beyond the limits of 
truth, taught, a heavenly Christ who came and united Himself to him for a time, but 
the Holy Spirit, in the full meaning of the term, by which Jesus became the Lord's 
anointed, the Christ, the perfect man, the second Adam, capable of begetting a new 
spiritual humanity., This spirit no longer acted on Him simply, on His will, as it had 
done from the beginning ; it became His proper nature, His personal life. No men- 
tion is ever made of the action of the Holy Spirit on Jesus during the course of His 
ministry. Jesus was more and better than inspired. Through the spirit whose life 
became His life, God was in Him, and He in God. In order to His being completely 
glorified as man, there remained but one thing more, that His earthly existence be 

* See the fine passage in Keim's " Gesch. Jesu," t, i. pp. 543-549, 



COMMENTARY ON" ST. LUKE. 123 

transformed into the divine state. His transfiguration was the prelude to this trans- 
formation. In the development of Jesus, the baptism is therefore the intermediate 
point between the miraculous birth and the ascension. 

But objections are raised against this biblical notion of the baptism of Jesus. Keim 
maintains that, since Jesus already possessed the Spirit through the divine influence 
which sanctified His birth, He could not receive it in His baptism. But would he 
deny that, if there is one act in human life which is free, it is the acquisition of the 
Spirit ? The Spirit's influence is too much of the nature of fellowship to force itself 
on any one. It must be desired and sought in order to be received ; and for it to be 
desired and sought, it must be in some measure known. Jesus declares (John 14 : 17), 
" that the world cannot receive the Holy Spirit, because it seeth Him not, neither 
knoweth Him." The possession of the Spirit cannot therefore be the starting-point 
of moral life ; it can only be the term of a more or less lengthened development of 
the soul's life. The human soul was created as the betrothed of the Spirit ; and for 
the marriage to be consummated, the soul must have beheld her heavenly spouse, and 
learned to love Him and accept Him freely. This state of energetic and active recep- 
tivity, the condition of every Pentecost, was that of Jesus at His baptism. It was 
the fruit of His previous pure development, which had simply been rendered possible 
by the interposition of the Holy Spirit in His birth (p. 58). 

Again, it is said that it lessens the moral greatness of Jesus to substitute a sudden 
and magical illumination, like that of the baptism, for that free acquisition of the 
Spirit — that spontaneous discovery and conquest of self which are due solely to per- 
sonal endeavor. But when God gives a soul the inward assurance of adoption, and 
reveals to it, as to Jesus at His baptism, the love He has for it, does this gift exclude 
previous endeavor, moral struggles, even anguish often bordering on despair ? No ; 
so far from grace excluding human preparatory labor, it would remain barren with- 
out it, just as the human labor would issue in nothing apart from the divine gift. 
Every schoolmaster has observed marked stages in the development of children — 
crises in which past growth has found an end, and from which an entirely new era 
has taken its date. There is nothing, therefore, out of harmony with the laws of 
psychology in this apparently abrupt leap which the baptism makes in the life of 
Jesus. 

2d. The Miraculous Circumstances. — Keim denies them altogether. Everything in 
the baptism, according to him, resolves itself into a heroic decision on the part of 
Jesus to undertake the salvation of the world, He alleges : 1. The numerous differ- 
ences between the narratives, particularly between that of John and those of the 
Syn. This objection rests on misapprehensions (see above). 2. The legendary char- 
acter of the prodigies related. But here one of two things must be true. Either our 
narratives of the baptism are the reproduction of the original evangelical tradition 
circulated by the apostles (1 : 2), and repeated during many years under their eyes ; 
and in this case, how could tbey contain statements positively false ? Or these 
accounts are legends of later invention ; but if so, how is their all but literal agree- 
ment to be accounted for, and the well-defined and fixed type which they exhibit ? 
3. The internal struggles of Jesus and the doubts of John the Baptist, mentioued in 
the subsequent history, are not reconcilable with this supernatural revelation, which, 
according to these accounts, both must have received at the time of the baptism. 
BuUit is impossible to instance a single struggle in the miuistry of Jesus respecting 
the reality of His mission ; it is to pervert the meaning of the conversation at Caesarea 



124 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

Piiilippi (see 9 : 18, et seq.), and of the prayer in Gethsemane, to find such a meaning 
in t-hem. And as to the doubts of John the Baptist, they certainly did not respect 
the origin of the mission of Jesus, since it is to none other than Jesus Himself that 
John applies for their solution, but solely to the nature of this mission. The unos- 
tentatious and peaceful progress of the work of Jesus, His miracles purely of mercy 
("having heard of the works of Christ," Matt- 11 : 2), contrasted so forcibly with the 
terrible Messianic judgment which he had announced as imminent (3 : 9, 17), that he 
was led to ask himself whether, in accordance with a prevalent opinion of Jewish 
theology,* Jesus was not the messenger of grace, the instrument of salvation ; while 
another, a second (srepoc, Matt. 11 : 3), to come after Him, would be the agent of 
divine judgment, and the temporal restorer of the people purified from every corrup- 
tion. John's doubt therefore respects, not the divinity of Jesus' mission, but the 
exclusive character of His Messianic dignity. 4. It is asked why John, if he believed 
in Jesus, did not from the hour of the baptism immediately take his place among 
His adherents ? But had he not a permanent duty to fulfil in regard to Israel ? Was 
he not to continue to act as a mediating agent between this people and Jesus ? To 
abandon his special position, distinct as it was from that of Jesus, in order to rank 
himself among His disciples, would have been to desert his official post, and to cease 
to be a mediator for Israel between them and their King. 

We cannot imagine for a moment, especially looking at the matter from a Jewish 
point of view 7 , according to which every holy mission proceeds from above, that Jesus 
would determine to undertake the unheard-of task of the salvation of the world and 
of the destruction of sin and death, and that John could share this determination, and 
proclaim it in God's name a heavenly mission, without some positive sign, some sen- 
sible manifestation of the divine will. Jesus, says Keim, is not a man of visions ; He 
needs no such signs ; there is no need of a dove between God and Him. Has Keim, 
then, forgotten the real humanity of Jesus ? That there were no visions during the 
course of His ministry, we concede ; there was no room for ecstasy in a man whose 
inward life was henceforth that of the Spirit Himself. But that there had been none 
in His preceding life up to the very threshold of this new state, is more than any one 
can assert. Jesus lived over again, if we may venture to say so, the whole life of 
humanity and the whole life of Israel, so far as these two lives were of a normal 
character ; and this was how it was that He so well understood them. Why should 
not the preparatory educational method of which God made such frequent use under 
the old covenant — the vision — have had its place in His inward development, before 
He reached, physically and spiritually, the stature of complete manhood ? 

3d. The Narratives of the Baptism. — Before we pronounce an opinion on the origin 
of our synoptical narratives, it is important to compare the apocryphal narrations. 
In the " Gospel of the Nazarenes," which Jerome had translated,! the mother and 
brethren of Jesus invite Him to go and be baptized by John. He answers : " Wherein 
have I sinned, and why should I go to be baptized by him— unless, perhaps, this 
speech which I have just uttered be [a sin pf] ignorance?" Afterward, a heavenly 
voice addresses these words to Him : " My Son, in all the prophets I have waited for 
Thy coming, in order to take my rest in Thee : for it is Thou who art my rest ; 
Thou art my first-born Son, and Thou shalt reign eternally. " In the Preaching of 

* See ray " Commentary on the Gospel of John," i. p. 311. 
f "Adv. Pet."iii. 1. 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 125 

Paul* Jesus actually confesses His sins to John the Baptist, just as all the others. 
In the Ebionitish recension of the Gospel of the Hebrews, cited by Epiphanius.f a 
great light surrounds the place where Jesus has just been baptized : then the plenti- 
tude of the Holy Spirit enters into Jesus under the form of a dove, and a divine voice 
says to Him, " Thou art my well-beloved Son ; on Thee I have bestowed my good 
pleasure." It resumes : " To-day have I begotten Thee." In this Gospel, also, the 
dialogue between Jesus and John, which Matthew relates before the baptism, is placed 
after it. John, after having seen the miraculous signs, says to Jesus, " Who then art 
Thou?" The divine voice replies, "This is my beloved Son, on whom I have 
bestowed my good pleasure." John falls at His feet, and says to Him, "Baptize 
me!" and Jesus answers him; " Cease from that." Justin Martyr relates,:}: that 
when Jesus had gone down into the water, a fire blazed up in the Jordan ; next, that 
when He came out of the water, the Holy Spirit, like a dove, descended upon Him ; 
lastly, that when EJe had ascended from the river, the voice said to Him, " Thou art 
my Son ; to-day have I begotten Thee." Who cannot feel the difference between 
prodigies of this kind —between these theological and amplified discourses attributed 
to God — and the holy sobriety of our biblical narratives ? The latter are the text ; 
the apocryphal writings give the human paraphrase. The comparison of these two 
kinds of narrative proves that the type of the apostolic tradition has been preserved 
pure as the impress of a medal, in the common tenor of our synoptical narratives. 
As to the difference between these narratives, they are not without importance. The 
principal differences are these : Matthew has, over and above the two others, the 
dialogue between Jesus and John which preceded the baptism, and which was only 
a continuation of the act of confession which Jesus had just made. The Ebionite 
Gospel places it after, because it did not understand this connection. The prayer of 
Jesus is peculiar to Luke, and he differs from the other two in the remarkable turn 
of the participle applied to the fact of the baptism of Jesus, and in the more objective 
form in which the miraculous facts are mentioned. Mark differs from the others only 
in the form of certain phrases, and in the expression, " He saw the heavens open." 
Holtzmann derives the accounts of Matthew and Luke from that of the alleged origi- 
nal Mark, which was very nearly an exact fac-simile of our canonical Mark. But 
whence did the other two derive what is peculiar to them ? Not from their imagina- 
tion, for an earnest writer does not treat a subject which he regards as sacred in this 
way. Either, then, from a document or from tradition ? But this document or tra- 
dition could not contain merely the detail peculiar to each evangelist ; the' detail 
implies the complete narrative. If the evangelist drew the detail from it, he most 
probably took from it the narrative also. Whence it seems to us to follow, that at 
the basis of our Syn. we must place certain documents or oral narrations, emanating 
from the primitive tradition (in this way their common general tenor is explained), 
but differing in some details, either because in the oral tradition the secondary feat- 
ures of the narrative naturally underwent some modification, or because the private 
documents underwent some alterations, owing to additional oral information, or to 
writings which might be accessible. 

* See " De rebaptismate, " in the works of Cyprian. Grabe, " Spicil." t. i. p. 69. 
f " Haer." xxx. 13. %" Dial. c. Tryph." c. 88 and 103. 



126 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 



THIRD NARRATIVE.— 3 : 23-38 

The Genealogy of Jesus. 

In the first Gospel the genealogy of Jesus is placed at the very beginning of the 
narrative. This is easily explained. From the point of view indicated by theocratic 
forms, scriptural antecedents, and, if we may so express it, Jewish etiquette, the 
Messiah was to be a descendant of Band and Abraham (Matt. 1 : 1). This relation- 
ship was the sine qua non of His civil status. It is not so easy to understand why 
Luke thought he must give the genealogy of Jesus, and why he places it just here, 
between the baptism and the temptation. Perhaps, if we bear in mind the obscurity 
in which, to the Greeks, the origin of mankind was hidden, and the absurd fables 
current among them about autochthonic nations, we shall see how interesting any 
document would be to them, which, following the track of actual names, went back 
to the first father of the race. Luke's intention would thus be ve^ry nearly the same 
as Paul's when he said at Athens (Acts 17 : 26), " God hath made of one blood the 
whole human race ' ' But from a strictly religious point of view, this genealogy pos- 
sessed still greater importance. In carrying it back not only, as Matthew does, as 
far as Abraham, but even to Adam, Luke lays the foundation of that universality of 
redemption which is to be one of the characteristic features of the picture he is about 
to draw. In this way he places in close and indissoluble connection the imperfect 
image of God created in Adam, which reappears in every man, and His perfect image 
realized in Christ, which is to be reproduced in all men. 

But why does Luke place this document here? Holtzmann replies (p, 112), 
" because hitherto there had been no suitable place for it." This answer harmonizes 
very well with the process of fabrication, by means of which this scholar thinks the 
composition of the i>yn. may be accounted for. But why did this particular place 
appear more suitable to the evangelist than another ? This is what has to be 
explained. Luke himself puts us on the right track by the first words of ver. 23. 
By giving prominence to the person of Jesus in the use of the pronoun avruS, He, 
which opens the sentence, by the addition of the name Jesus, and above all, by the 
verb yv which separates this peonoun and this substantive, and sets them both in 
relief (" and Himself was, He, Jesus . . ."), Luke indicates this as the moment 
when Jesus enters personally on the scene to commence His proper work. With 
the baptism, the obscurity in which He has lived until now passes away ; He now 
appears detached from the circle of persons who have hitherto surrounded Him and 
acted as His patrons — namely, His parents and the forerunner. He henceforth 
becomes the He, the principal personage of the narrative. This is the moment which 
very properly appears to the author most suitable for giving His genealogy. The 
genealogy of Moses, in the Exodus, is placed in the same way, not at the opening of 
his biography, but at the moment when he appears on the stage of history, when he 
presents himself before Pharaoh (6 : 14, el seq.). In crossing the threshold of this 
new era, the sacred historian casts a general glance .over the period which thus reaches 
its close, and^ums it up in this document, which might be called the mortuary regis- 
ter of the earlier humanity. 

There is further a difference of form between the two genealogies. Matthew comes 
clown, while Luke ascends the stream of generations. Perhaps this difference of 
method depends on the difference of religious position between the Jews and the 
Greeks. The Jew, finding the basis of his thought in a revelation, proceeds synthet- 



COMMENTARY Otf ST. LUKE. 127 

ically from cause to effect ; the Greek, possessing nothing beyond the fact, analyzes 
it, that he may proceed from effect to cause. But this difference depends more 
probably still on another circumstance. Every official genealogical register must 
present the descending form ; for individuals are only inscribed in it as they are born. 
The ascending form of genealogy can only be that of a private instrument, drawn 
up from the public document with a view to the particular individual whose name 
serves as the starting. point of the whole list. It follows that in Matthew we have 
the exact copy of the official register ; while Luke gives us a document extracted 
from the public records, and compiled with a view to^ the person with whom the 
genealogy commences. 

Ver. 23 is at once the transition and preamble ; vers. 24-88 contain the genealogy 
itself. 1st. Ver. 23.* The exact translation of this important and difficult veise is 
this: "And Himself, Jesus, was [aged] about thirty years when He began [or, if 
the term may be employed here, made His debut"], being a son, as w T as believed, of 
Joseph." The expression to begin can only refer in this passage to the entrance of 
Jesus upon His Messianic work. This idea is in direct connection with the context 
(baptism, temptation), and particularly with the first words of the verse. Having 
fully become He, Jesus begins. "We must take care not to connect apx^evos and ?/y 
as parts of a single verb (was beginning for began), For ijv has a complement of its 
own, of thirty years ; it therefore signifies here, was of the age of . Some have tried 
to make TpLdnovra eruv depend on apxo[xevoS, He began His thirtieth year ; and it is 
perhaps owing to this interpretation that we find this participle placed first in the 
Alex. But for this sense, tpkikootov erovs would have been necessary ; and the limita- 
tion about cannot have reference to the commencement of the year. (On the agreement 
of this chronological fact with the date, ver. 1, see p. 106). We have already 
observed that the age of thirty is that of the greatest physical and psychical strength, 
the aKfxri of natural life. It was the age at which, among the Jews, the Levites 
entered upon their duties (Num. 4 : 3, 23), and when, among the Greeks, a young 
man began to take part in public affairs.f The participle 6u, being, makes a strange 
impression, not only because it is purely and simply in juxtaposition with apxojuevos 
(beginning, being), and depends on tjv, the very verb of which it is a part, but still 
more because its connection with the latter verb cannot be explained by any of the 
three logical relations by which a participle is connected with a completed verb, 
when, because, or although. What relation of simultaneousness, causality, or opposi- 
tion, could there be between the filiation of Jesus and the age at which He had 
arrived ? This incoherence is a clear indication that the evangelist has with some 
difficulty effected a soldering of two documents— that which he has hither o followed, 
and which for the moment he abandons, and the genealogical register which he 
wishes to insert in this place. 

With the participle uv, being, there begins then a transition which we owe to the 
pen of Luke. How far does it extend, and where aoe3 the genealogical register 
properly begin ? This is a nice and important question. We have only a hint for 

* &. B. L. X. some Mnn. It ali i. Or. place apxo/ievoc before uoet eruv TpinKovra, 
while T. R., with all the rest of the documents, place it after these words. &. B. L. 
some Mnn. read in this order : uv vioz wS eropit^eTo Tuoij<p, instead of uv uq evoui&to 
utos luaijQ in T. R. and the other authorities. H. r. (not B.) some Mnn. add tov 
before Icjct^. 

t See the two passages from Xenophon ("Memor." 1) and from Dionysius of 
Halicurnassus (" Hist." iv. 6), cited by Wieseler, Beitrage, etc., pp. 165, 166. 



128 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

its solution. This is the absence of the article rov, the, before the name Joseph. This 
word is found before all the names belonging to the genealogical series. In the 
genealogy of Matthew, the article rov is put in the same way before each proper name, 
which clearly proves that it was the ordinary form in vogue in this kind of document. 
The two mss. H. and I. read, it is true, rov before 'IwotjQ. But since these unimpor- 
tant mss. are unsupported by their ally the Vatican, to which formerly the same 
reading was erroneously attributed (see Tischend. 8th ed.), this various reading has 
no longer liny weight. On the one hand, it is easily explained as an imitation of 
the following terms of the genealogy ; on the other, we could not conceive of the 
suppression of the article 'in all the most ancient documents, if it had originally 
belonged to the text. This want of the article puts the name Joseph outside the 
genealogical series properly so called, and assigns to it a peculiar position. We must 
conclude from it— Is?. That this name belongs rather to the sentence introduced by 
Luke ; 2d. That the genealogical document which he consulted began with the name 
of Heli ; 3d And consequently, that this piece was not originally the genealogy of 
Jesus or of Joseph, but of Heli. 

There is a second question to determine : whether we should prefer the Alexan- 
drine reading, " being a son, as it was believed, of Joseph ;" or the Byzantine text, 
"" being, as it was believed, a son of Joseph." There is internal probability that the 
copyists would rather have been drawn to connect the words son and Joseph, in order 
to restore the phrase frequently employed in the Gospels, son of Joseph, than to 
separate them. This observation appears to decide for the Alexandrine text. 

It is of importance next to determine the exact meaning of the rov which precedes 
each of the genealogical names. Thus far we have supposed this word to be the 
article, and this is the natural interpretation. But we might give it the force of a 
pronoun, he, the one, and translate : " Joseph, he [the son] of Heli ; Heli, he [the son] 
of Matthat," etc. Thus understood, the rov would each time be in apposition with 
the preceding name, and would have the following name for its complement. But 
this explanation cannot be maintained ; for — 1st. It cannot be applied to the last term 
rov Qeov, in which rov is evidently an article ; 2d. The recurrence of rov in the gene- 
alogy of Matthew proves that the article belonged to the terminology of these docu- 
ments ; 3d. The rov thus understood would imply an intention to distinguish the 
individual to which it refers from some other person bearing the same name, but not 
having the same father, " Heli, the one of Matthat [and not one of another father] ;" 
which could not be the design of the genealogist. The rod is therefore undoubtedly 
an article. But, admitting this, we may still hesitate between two interpretations ; 
we may subordinate each genitive to the preceding name, as is ordinarily done : 
" Heli, son of Matthat, [which Matthat was a son] of Levi, [which Levi was a son] 
of ■ . . . ;" or, as Wieseler proposed, we may co-ordinate all the genitives, so 
as to make each of them depend directly on the word son placed at the head of the 
entire series: "Jesus, son of Heli; [Jesus, son] of Matthat . . .*' So that, 
according to the Jewish usage, which permitted-a grandson to be called the son of his 
grandfather, Jesus would be called the son of each of His ancestors in succession. 
This interpretation would not be, in itself, so forced as Bleek maintains. But never- 
theless the former is preferable, for it alone really expresses the notion of a succession 
of generations, which is the ruling idea of every genealogy. The genitives in Luke 
merely supply the place of eyewvae, as repeated in the original document, of which 
Matthew gives us the text. Besides, we do not think that it would be necessary to 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 129 

supply, between each link in the genealogical chain, the term vlov, son of, as an appo- 
sition of ihe preceding name. Each genitive is also the complement of the name 
which precedes it. The idea of filiation resides in the grammatical case. We have 
the genitive here in its essence. 

There remains, lastly, the still more important question : On what does the geni- 
tive tov 'HA/ (of Heli) precisely depend ? On the name 'lo)orj<p which immediately pre- 
cedes it ? This would be in conformity with the analogy of all the other genitives, 
which, as Ave have just proved, depend each on the preceding name. Thus Heli 
would have been the father of Joseph, and the genealogy of Luke, as well as that of 
Matthew, would be the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph. In that case we should 
have to explain how the two documents could be so totally different. But this view 
is incompatible with the absence of the article before Joseph. If the name 'luor/Q had 
been intended by Luke to be the basis of the entire genealogical series, it would have 
been fixed and determined by the article with much greater reason certainly than the 
names that follow. The genitive tov 'RaI, of Heli, depends therefore not on Joseph, 
but on the word son. This construction is not possible, it is true, with the received 
reading, in which the words son and Joseph form a single phrase, son of Joseph. The 
word son cannot be separated from the word it immediately governs : Joseph, to 
receive a second and more distant complement. With this reading, the only thing 
left to us is to make tov 'RVl depend on the participle uv ■ " Jesus . . . being 
. . . [born] of Heli.*' An antithesis might be found between the real fact (uv, 
being) and the apparent (svo/ut&To, as was thought) : " being, as was thought, a son of 
Joseph, [in reality] born of Heli." But can the word uv signify both to be (in the 
sense of the verb substantive) and to be bom off Everything becomes much more 
simple if we assume the Alex, reading, which on other grounds has already appeared 
to us the more probable. The word son, separated as it is from its first complement, 
of Joseph, by the words as was thought, may very well have a second, of Heli. The 
first is only noticed in passing, and in order to be denied in the very mention of it : 
*' Son, as was thought, of Joseph." The official information being thus disavowed, 
Luke, by means of the second complement, substitutes for it the truth, of Heli ; and 
this name he distinguishes, by means of the article, as the firstlinkof the genealogical 
chain property so called. The text, therefore, to express the author's meaning 
clearly, should be written thus : " being a son— as was thought, of Joseph — of Heli, 
of Matthat . . ." Bleek has put the words 6g hofii&To into a parenthesis, and 
rjghtly ; only he should have added to them the word 'luortf. 

This study of the text in detail leads us in this way to admit — 1. That the genea- 
logical register of Luke is that of Heli, the grandfather of Jesus ; 2. That, this affili- 
ation of Jesus by Heli being expressly opposed to His affiliation by Joseph, the docu- 
ment which he has preserved for us can be nothing else in his view than the gene- 
alogy of Jesus through Mary. But why does not Luke name Mary, and why pass 
immediately from Jesus to His grandfather ? Ancient sentiment did not comport 
with the mention of the mother as the genealogical link. Among the Greeks a man 
was the son of his father, not of bis mother ; and among the Jews the adage was : 
" Genus matris non wcatur genus" (" Baba bathra," 110, a). In lieu of this, it is not 
uncommon to find in the O. T. the grandson called the son of his grandfather.* 

* Comp. for example, 1 Chron. 8 : 3 with Gen. 46 : 21 ; Ezra 5 : 1, 6 : 14. with 
Zech. 1 : 1, 7 ; and in the N. T., Matt. 1 : 8 with 1 Chron. 4 : 11, 12— a passage in 
which King Joram is even recorded as having begotten the son of his grandson. 



130 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

If there were any circumstances in which this usage was applicable, would not 
the wholly exceptional case with which Luke was dealing be such ? There was 
only one way of filling up the hiatus, resulting from the absence of the father, 
between the grandfather and his grandson — namely, to introduce the name of the 
presumed father, noting at'the same time the falseness of this opinion. It is remark- 
able that, in the Talmud, Mary the mother of Jesus is called the daughter of Hdi 
(" Chagig." 77 : 4). From whence have Jewish scholars derived this information ? If 
from the text of Luke, this proves that they understood it as we do ; if they 
received it from tradition, it confirms the truth of the genealogical document Luke 
made use of.* 

If this explanation be rejected, it must be admitted that Luke as well as Matthew 
gives us the genealogy of Joseph. The difficulties to be encountered in this direction 
are these : 1. The absence of tov before the name 'locrjtj), and before this name alone, 
is not accounted for. 2. We are met by an all but insoluble contradiction between 
the two evangelists — the one indicating Heli as the father of Joseph, the other Jacob 
— which leads to two series of names wholly different. We might, it is true, have 
recourse to the following hypothesis proposed by Julius Africanus (third century) : f 
Heli and Jacob were brothers ; one of them died without children ; the survivor, in 
conformity with the law, married his widow, and the first-born of this union, Joseph, 
was registered as a son of the deceased. In this way Joseph would have had two 
fathers — one real, the other legal. But this hypothesis is not sufficient ; a second is 
needed. For if Heli and Jacob were brothers, they must have had the same father ; 
and the two genealogies should coincide on reaching the name of the grandfather of 
Joseph, which is not the case. It is supposed, therefore, that they were brothers on 
the mother's side only, which explains both the difference of the fathers and that of 
the entire genealogies. This superstructure of coincidences is not absolutely inad- 
missible, but no one can think it natural. We should be reduced, then, to admit an 
absolute contradiction between the two evangelists. But can it be supposed that both 
or either of them could have been capable of fabricating such a register, heaping 
name upon name quite arbitrarily, and at the mere pleasure of their caprice ? Who 
could credit a proceeding so absurd, and that in two genealogies, one of which sets 
out from Abraham, the venerated ancestor of the people, the other terminating in 
God Himself ! All these names must have been taken from documents. But is it 
possible in this case to admit, in one or both of these writers, an entire mistake? 
3. It is not only with Matthew that Luke would be in contradiction, but with him- 
self. He admits the miraculous birth (chap. 1 and 2). It is conceivable that, from 
the theocratic point of view which Matthew takes, a certain interest might, even on 
this supposition, be assigned to the genealogy of Joseph, as the adoptive, legal father 
of the Messiah. But that Luke, to whom this official point of view was altogether 
foreign, should have handed down with so much care this series of seventy-three 
names, after having severed the chain at the first link, as he does by the remark, as 
it teas thought; that, further, he should give himself the trouble, after this, to de- 
velop the entire series, and finish at last with God Himself : this is a moral impos- 
sibility. What sensible man, Gfrorer has very properly asked (with a different de- 
sign, it is true), could take pleasure in drawing up such a list of ancestors, after hav- 
ing declared that the relationship is destitute of all reality? Modern criticism has, 
last of all, been diiven to the following hypothesis : Matthew and Luke each found a 
genealogy of Jesus written from the Jewish-Christian standpoint : they were both 
different genealogies of Joseph ; for among this party (which was no other than the 
primitive Church) he was without hesitation regarded as the father of Jesus. But at 
the time when these documents were published by the evangelists another theory 
already prevailed, that of the miraculous birth, which these two authors embraced. 
They published, therefore, their documents, adapting them as best they could to the 

* The relationship of Jesus to the royal family is also affirmed by the Talmud 
("Tr. Sanhedrim," 43). 
f Eus, "Hist. Eccl."i. 7. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 131 

new belief, just as Luke does by his as it was thought, and Matthew by the periphrasis 
1 : 16. But, 1. We have pointed out that the opinion which attributes to the 
primitive apostolic Church Hie idea of the natural birth of Jesus rests upon no solid 
foundation. 2. A writer who speaks of apostolic tradition as Luke speaks of it, 1 : 2, 
could not have knowingly put himself in opposition to it on a point of this impor- 
tance. 3. If we advance no claim on behalf of the sacred writers to inspiration, we 
protest agaiust whatever impeaches their good sense. The first evangelist, M. 
Reville maiutaius,* did not even perceive the incompatibility between the theory of 
the miraculous birth and his genealogical document. As to Luke, this same author 
says : " The third perceives very clearty the contradiction ; neveithelesa he wiites his 
history as if it did not exist." In other words, Matthew is more foolish than false, 
Luke more false than foolish. Criticism which is obliged to suppoit itself by attribut- 
ing to the sacred wi iters absurd methods, such as are found in no sensible writer, is 
self-condemned. There is not the smallest proof that the documents used by Mat- 
thew and Luke were of Jewish-Christian origin. On the contrary, it is very prob- 
able, since the facts all go to establish it, that they were simply copies of the 
official registers of the public tables (see below), referring, one to Joseph, the other 
to Heli, both consequently of Jewish origin. So far from there being any ground 
to regard them as monuments of a Christian conception, differing from that of the 
evangelists, it is these authors, or those who transmitted them to tnem, who set upon 
them for the first time the Christian seal, by adding to them the part which refers to 
Jesus. 4. Lastly, after all, these two series of completely different names have in 
any case to be explained. Are they fictitious ? Who can maintain this, when writers 
so evidently in earnest are concerned? Are they founded upon documents? How 
then could they differ so completely*? This difficulty becomes greater still if it is 
maintained that these two different genealogies of Joseph proceed from the same 
ecclesiastical quarter — from the Jewish-Christian party. 

But have we sufficient proofs of the existence of genealogical registers among the 
Jews at this epoch ? We have already referred to the public tables (Si/.roi arjfxoacat) 
from which Josephus had extracted his own genealogy : " I relate my genealogy as 
I find it recorded in'the public tables." f The same Josephus, in his work, " Contra 
Apion" (i. 7), says : "From all the countries in which our priests are scattered 
abroad, they send to Jerusalem (in order to have their children entered) documents 
containing the names of their parents and ancestors, and countersigned by wit- 
nesses." What was done for the priestly families could not fail to have been done 
with regard to the royal family, from which it was known that the Messiah was to 
spring. The same conclusion results also from the following facts. The famous 
Rabbi Hillel, who lived in the time of Jesus, succeeded in proving, by means of a 
genealogical table in existence at Jerusalem, that, although a poor man, he was a 
descendant of David.:}: The line of descent in the different branches of the royal 
family was so well known that even at the end of the fust century of the Church the 
grandsons of Jude, the brother of the Lord, had to appear at Rome as descendants 
of David, and undergo examination in the presence of Domitian.g According to 
these facts, the existence of two genealogical documents relating, one to Joseph, the 
other to Heli, and preserved in their respective families, offers absolutely nothing at 
all improbable. 

In comparing the two narratives of the infancy, we'have been led to assign them to 
two different sources : that of Matthew appeared to us to emanate from the relations of 
Joseph ; that of Luke from the circle of which Mary was the centre (p. 163). Some- 
thing similar occurs again in regard to the two genealogies. That of Matthew, 
which has Joseph in view, must have proceeded from his family ; that which Luke has 
transmitted to us, being that of Mary's father, must have come from this latter quarter. 
But it is manifest that this difference of production is connected with a moral cause. 
The meaning of one of the genealogies is certainly hereditary, Messianic ; the mean- 
ing of the other is universal redemption. Hence, in the one, the relationship is 
through Joseph, the representative of the civil, national, theocratic side ; in the other, 

* " Histoire du Dogme de la Divinite de Jesus Christ," p. 27. 

t Jos. " Vita," c. i. % " Bereschit rabba,"98, 

§ Hegesippus, in Eusebius' " Hist. Eccl." ill. 19 and 20 (ed. Loemmer), 



132 COMMENTAKY OS" ST. LUKE. 

the descent is through Mary, the organ of the real human relationship. Was not 
Jesus at once to appear and to be the son of David ? — to appear such, through him 
whom the people regarded as His father ; to be such, through her from whom He 
really derived His human existeDce ? The two affiliations answered to these two re- 
quirements. 

Second. Vers. 24-38.* And first, vers. 24-27 : from Heli to the captivity. In 
this period Luke mentions 21 generations (up to Neri) ; only 19, if the various read- 
ing of Af ricanus be admitted ; Matthew, 14. This last number is evidently too small 
for the length of the period. As Matthew omits in the period of the kings four well- 
known names of the O. T., it is probable that he takes the same course here, either 
through an involuntary omission, or for the sake of keeping to the number 14 (1 : 17). 
This comparison should make us appreciate the exactness of Luke's register. But 
how is it that the names Zorobabel and Salathiel occur, connected with each other 
in the same way, in both the genealogies ? And how can Salathiel have Neri for his 
father in Luke, and in Matthew King Jechonias ? Should these names be regarded 
as standing for different persons, as Wieseler thinks ? This is not impossible. The 
Zorobabel and the Salathiel of Luke might be two unknown persons of the obscurer 
branch of the royal family descended from Nathan ; the Zorobabel and the Salathiel 
of Matthew, the two well-known persons of the O. T. history, belonging to the reign- 
ing branch, the first a son, the second a grandson of King Jechonias (1 Chron. 3 : 17); 
Ezra 3:2; Hag. 1 : 1). This is the view which, after all, appears to Bleek most prob- 
able. It is open, however, to a serious objection from the fact that these two names, 
in the two lists, refer so exactly to the same period, since in both of them they are 
very nearly half way between Jesus and David. If the identity of these persons in 
the two genealogies is admitted, the explanation must be found in 2 Kings 24 : 12, 
which proves that King Jechonias had no son at the time when he was carried into 
captivity. It is scarcely probable that he had one while in prison, where he remained 
shut up for thirty-eight years. He or they whom the passage 1 Chron. 3 : 17 assigns 
to him (which, besides, may be translated in three different w T ays) must be regarded 
as adopted sons or as sons-in-law ; they would be spoken of as sons, because they 
would be uuwilling to allow the reigning branch of the royal family to become ex- 
tinct. Salathiel, the first of them, would thus have some other father than Jechonias ; 
and this father would be Neri, of the Nathan branch, indicated by Luke. An alter- 
native hypothesis has been proposed, founded on the Levirate law. Neri, as a rel- 
ative of Jechonias, might have married one of the wives of the imprisoned king, in 
order to perpetuate the royal family ; and the son of this union, Salathiel, would have 
been legally a son of Jechonias^ but really a son of ISeri. In any case, the numerous 
differences that are found in the statements of our historical books at this period 
prove that the catastrophe of the captivity brought considerable confusion into the reg- 
isters or family traditions.! Khesa and Abiud, put down, the one by Luke, the other 

* We omit the numerous orthographical variations connected with these proper 
names. Ver. 24. Jul. Afric. Eus. Ir. (probably) omit the two- names MaSSad and 
Asvet. 

I According to 1 Chron. 3 : 16, 2 Chron. 36 : 10 (Heb. text), Zedekiah was son of 
Jehoiakim and brother of Jehoiachin ; but, according to 2 Kings 24 : 17 and Jer. 
37 : 1, he was sun of Josiah and brother of Jehoiakim. According to 1 Chron. 3 : 19, 
Zorobabel was son of Pedaiah and graudson of Jeconiah, and consequently nephew 
of Salathiel ; while, according to Ezra 3 : 2, Neh. 12 1, Hag. 1:1, he was son of 
Salathiel, etc. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 133 

by Matthew, as sons of Zorobabel, are not mentioned in the O. T., according to which 
the sons of this restorer of Israel should have been Meshullam and Hananiah (1 Chron. 
3 : 19). Bleek observes, that if the evangelists had fabricated their lists, they would 
naturally have made use of these two names that are furnished by the sacred text ; 
therefore they have followed their documents. 

Vers. 28-31. From the captivity to David, 20 names. Matthew for the same 
period has only 14. But it is proved by the O. T. that he omits four ; the number 
20, in Luke, is a fresh proof of the accuracy of his document. On Nathan, son of 
David, comp. 2 Sam. 5 : 14, Zech. 12 : 12. The passage in Zechariah proves that this 
branch was still flourishing after the return from the captivity. If Neri, the de- 
scendant of Nathan, was the real father of Salathiel, the adopted son or son-in-law of 
Jechonias, we should find here once more the characteristic of the two genealogies : 
in Matthew, the legal, official point of view ; in Luke, the real, human point of view. 

Vers. 32-34«. From David to Abraham. The two genealogies agree with each 
other, and with the O. T. 

Vers. 346-38. From Abraham to Adam. This part is peculiar to Luke. It is 
compiled evidently from the O. T., and according to the text of the LXX., with 
which it exactly coincides. The name Cainan, ver. 36, is only found in the LXX., 
and is wanting in the Heb. text (Gen. 10 : 24, 11 12). This must be a very ancient 
variation. The words, of God, with which it ends, are intended to inform us that it 
is not through ignorance that the genealogist stops at Adam, but because he has 
reached the end of the chain, perhaps also to remind us of the truth'expressed by 
Paul at Athens : " We are the offspring of God." The last word of the genealogy is 
connected with its starting-point (vers. 22, 23). If man were not the offspring of 
God, the incarnation (ver. 22) would be impossible. God cannot say to a man, 
" Thou art my beloved son," save on this ground, that humanity itself is His issue 
(ver. 38).* 

FOURTH NARRATIVE.— CHAP. 4 : 1-13. 

The Temptation. 

Every free creature, endowed with various faculties, must pass through a conflict, 
in which it decides either to use them for its own gratification, or to glorify God by 
devoting them to His service. The angels have passed through this trial ; the first 
man underwent it ; Jesus, being truly human, did not escape it. Our Syn. are 
unanimous upon this point. Their testimony as to the time when this conflict took 
place is no less accordant.' All three place it immediately after His baptism, at the 
outset of His Messianic career. This date is important for determining the true mean- 
ing of this trial. 

The temptation of the first man bore upon the use of the powers inherent in our 
nature. Jesus also experienced this kind of trial. How many times during His'child- 
hood and early manhood must He have been exposed to those temptations which ad- 
dress themselves to the instincts of the natural life ! The lust of the flesh, the lust 
of the eyes, and the pride of life — these different forms of sin, separately or with 
united force, endeavored to besiege His* heart, subjugate His will, enslave His powers, 
and invade this pure being as they had invaded the innocent Adam. But on the bat- 

* See the valuable applications which Riggenbach makes of these genealogies, 
" Vie de Jesus," ninth lesson, at the commencement. 



134 COMMENT AKY OK ST. LUKE. 

tie-field on which Adam had succumbed Jesus remained a victor. The " conscience 
.without a scar," which He carried from the first part of His life into the second, 
assures us of this. The new trial He is now to undergo belongs to a higher domain 
— that of the spiritual life. It no longer respects the powers of the natural man, but 
His filial position, and the supernatural powers just conferred upon Him at His bap- 
tism. The powers of the Spirit are in themselves holy, but the histoiy of the church 
of Corinth shows how they may be profaned when used in the service of egotism and 
self-love (1 Cor, 12-14). This is that filthiness of the spirit (2 Cor. 7 : 1). which is 
more subtle, and often more pernicious, than that of the flesh. The divine powers 
which Jesus had just received had therefore to be sanctified in His experience, that 
is, to receive from Him, in His inmost soul, their consecration to the service of God. 
In order to this, it was necessary that an opportunity to apply them either to His own 
use or to God's service should be offered Him. His decision on this critical occasion 
would determine forever the tendency and nature of His Messianic work. Christ or 
Antichrist was the alternative term of the two ways which were opening before Him. 
This trial is not therefore a" repetition of that of Adam, the father of the old humanity; 
it is the special trial of the Head of the new humanity. And it is not simply a ques- 
tion here, as in our conflicts, whether a given individual shall form part of the king- 
dom of God ; it is the very existence of this kingdom that is at stake. Its future 
sovereign, sent to found it, struggles in close combat with the sovereign of the 
hostile realm. 

This narrative comprises < 1st. A general view (vers. 1, 2) ; 2d. The first temptation 
(vers. 3, 4) ; 3d. The second (vers. 5-8) ; 4th. The third (vers. 9-12) ; 5th. An his- 
torical conclusion (ver. 13). 

First. Vers. 1, 2.* By these words, full of the Holy Ghost, this narrative is 
brought into close connection with that of the baptism. The genealogy is therefore 
intercalated. While the other baptized persons, after the ceremony, went away to 
their own homes, Jesus betook Himself into solitude. This He did not at His own 
prompting, as Luke gives us to understand, by the expression full of the Holy Ghost, 
which proves that the Spirit directed Him in this, as in every other step. The two 
other evangelists explicitly say it. Matthew, He was led up of the Spirit; Mark, still 
more forcibly, Immediately the Spirit drineth Him into the wilderness. Perhaps the 
human inclination of Jesus would have been to return to Galilee and begin at once to 
teach. The Spirit detains Him ; and Matthew, who, in accordance with his didactic 
aim, in narrating the fact explains its object, says expressly r " He was led up of the 
Spirit . . . to be tempted." The complement of the verb returned would be : 
from the Jordan (euro) into Galilee (cis). But this complex government is so dis- 
tributed that the first part is found in ver. 1 (the and without the «S, and the second 
in ver. 14 (the «S without the airo). The explanation of this construction is, that the 
temptation was an interruption in the return of Jesus from the Jordan into Galilee. 
The Spirit detained Him in Judaea. The T. K. reads sis, " led into the wilderness ;" 
the Alex, ev, " led (carried hither and thither) in the wilderness." We might sup- 
pose that this second reading was only the result of the very natural reflection that, 
John being already in the desert, Jesus had not to repair thither. But, on the 
other hand, the received reading may easily have been imported into Luke 

* Ver 1. &. B. D. L. It ali i., ei rn eprjm instead of ei$ ttjv eprj/iov, the reading of 
T. R. with 15 Mjj., all the Mnn. Syr. It* 11 *. Vg. Ver. 2. The same omit varepov 
(taken from Matthew.) 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 135 

from the two other Syn. And the prep.' of rest (h) in the Alex, belter 
accords with the irnperf. fjyeTo, was led, which denotes a continuous action. The ex- 
pression, was led by, indicates that the severe exercises of soul which Jesus experienced 
under the action of the Spirit absorbed Him in such a way that the use of His 
faculties iu regard to the external world was thereby suspended. In going into the 
desert He was not impelled by a desire to accomplish any definite object ; it was 
only, as it were, a cover for the state of intense meditation in which He was absorbed.^ 
Lost in contemplation of His personal relation to God, the full consciousness of which 
He had just attained, and of the consequent task it imposed upon Him in reference 
to Israel and the woild, His heart sought to make these recent revelations wholly its 
own. If tradition is to be credited, the wilderness here spoken of was the mountain- 
ous and uninhabited country bordering on the road which ascends from Jericho to 
Jerusalem. On the right of this road, not far from Jericho, there rises a limestone 
peak, exceedingly sharp and abrupt, which bears the name of Quarantania. The 
rocks which surround it are pierced by a number of caves. This would be the scene 
of the temptation. We are ignorant whether this tradition rests upon any historical 
fact. This locality is a continuation of the desert of Judaea, where John abode. 

The words forty days may refer either to was led or to being tempted; in sense both 
come to the same thing,. the two actions being simultaneous. According to Luke 
and Mark, Jesus was incessantly besieged during this whole time. Suggestions of a 
very different nature from the holy thoughts which usually occupied Him harassed 
the working of His mind. Matthew does not mention this secret action of the enemy, 
who was preparing for the final crisis. How can it be maintained that one of these 
forms of the narrative has been borrowed from the other ? 

The term devil, employed by Luke and Matthew, comes from 6ia(3a2.?ieiv, to spread 
reports, to slander. Mark employs the word Satan (from 1£^> to oppose ; Zech. 3:1, 
2 ; Job 1 : 6, etc.). The first of these names is taken from the relation of this being 
to men ; the second from his relations with God. 

The possibility of the existence of moral beings of a different nature from that of 
man cannot be denied a priori. Now if these beings are free creatures, subject to a 
law of probation, as little can it be denied that this probation might issue in a fall. 
Lastly, since in every society of moral beings there are eminent individuals who, by 
virtue of their ascendency, become centres around which a host of inferior individuals 
group themselves, this may also be the case in this unknown spiritual domain. Keim 
himself says : " We regard this question of the existence of an eviL power as al- 
together an open question for science." This question, which is an open one from a 
scientific point of view, is settled in the view of faith by the testimony of the Saviour, 
who, in a passage in which there is not the slightest trace of accommodation to 
popular prejudice, John 8 : 44, delineates in a few graphic touches the moral position 
of Satan. In another passage, Luke 22 : 31, " Satan hath desired to have you, that 
he may sift you as wheat ; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not," Jesus 
lifts the veil which hides from us the scenes of the invisible world ; the relation 
which He maintains between the accuser Satan, and Himself the intercessor, implies 
that in His eyes this personage is uo less a personal being than Himself. The part 
sustained by this being iu the temptation of Jesus is attested by the passage, Luke 
11 : 21, 22. It was necessary that the strong man, Satan, the prince of this world, 
should be vanquished by his adversaty, the stronger than he, in a personal conflict, 
for the latter to be able to set about 'spoiling the world, which is Satan's stronghold. 
"Weizsacker and Keim * acknowledge an allusion in this passage to the fact of the 
temptation. It is this victory in siugle combat which makes the deliverance of every 
captive of Satan possible to Jesus; 

* " Untersucli." p. 330 ; " Gesch. Jesu," t. i. p. 570. 






136 COMMENTARY OST ST. LUKE. * 

Luke mentions Jesus' abstinence from food for six weeks as a fact which was only 
the natural consequence of His being absorbed in profound meditation. To Him, 
indeed, this whole time passed like a single hour ; He did not even feel the pangs of 
hunger. This follows from the words : '' And when they were ended, He afterward 
hungered," By the term vijarevcas, having fasted, Matthew appears to give this ab- 
stinence the character of a deliberate ritual act, to make it such a fast as, among the 
Jews, ordinarily accompanied certain seasons devoted specially to prayer. This 
shade of thought is not a contradiction, but accords with the general character of the 
two narrations, and becomes a significant indication of their originality. The fasts 
of Moses and Elijah, in similar circumstances, lasted the same time. In certain mor- 
bid conditions, which involve a more or less entire abstinence from food, a period of 
six weeks generally brings about a crisis, after which the demand for nourishment is 
renewed with extreme urgency. The exhausted body becomes a prey to a deathly 
sinking. Such, doubtless, was the condition of Jesus ; He felt Himself dying. It 
was the moment the tempter had waited for to make his decisive assault. 

Second. Vers. 3, 4.* First Temptation. —The text of Luke is very sober : The 
devil mid to Him. The encounter exhibited under this form may be explained as a 
contact of mind with mind ; but in Matthew the expression came to Him seems to 
imply a bodily appearance. This, however, is nut necessarily its meaning. This 
term may be regarded as a symbolical expression of the moral sensation experienced 
by Jesus at the moment when He felt the attack of this spirit so alien from His own. 
In this sense, the coming took place only in the spiritual sphere. Since Scripture 
does nut mention any visible appearance of Satan, and as the angelophanies are facts 
the perception of which always implies a co-operation uf the inner sense, the latter 
interpretation is more natural. The words, if thou art, express something very 
different from a doubt ; this if has almost the force of since : "If thou art really, as 
it seems . . ." Satan alludes to God's salutation at the baptism. M. de Pres- 
sense is wrong in paraphrasing the words : " If thou art the Messiah." Here, and 
invariably, the name Son of God refers to a personal relation, not. to an office (see on 
ver. 22). But what criminality would there have been in the act suggested to Jesus ? 
It has been said that He was not allowed to use His miraculous power for His own 
benefit. Why not, if He was allowed to use it for the benefit of others ? The moral 
law does not command that one should love his neighbor better than himself. It 
has been said that He would have acted from His own will, God not having com- 
manded this miracle. But did God direct every act of Jesus by means of a positive 
command V Had not divine direction in Jesus a more spiritual character ? Satan's 
address and the answer of Jesus put us on the right track. In saying to Him, If 
tlwu art the Son of God, Satan seeks to arouse in His heart the feeling of His divine 
greatness ; and with what object ? He wishes by this means to make Him feel more 
painfully the contrast between His actual destitution, consequent on His human con- 
dition, and the abundance to which His divine nature seems to give Him a right. 
There was indeed, especially after His baptism, an anomaly in the position of Jesus. 
On the one hand, He had been exalted to a distinct consciousness of His dignity as 
the Son of God ; while, on the other, His condition as Son of man remained the 
same. He continued this mode of existence wholly similar to ours, and wholly 

* Ver. 4. J*. B. L. omit feyuv. 9 Mjj. 70 Mnn. Or. omit o before avBpunoS. & 
B. L. Cop. omit the words, akV em Tzavrl pr\nari Qsov, which is the reading of T. R. 
with 15 Mjj., all the Mnn. Syr. It. Yg. (taken from Matthew). 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 137 

dependent, in which form it was His mission to realize here below the filial life. 
Thence there necessarily resulted a constant temptation to elevate, by acts of power, 
His miserable condition to the height of His conscious Sonship. And this is the first 
point of attack by which Satan seeks to master His will, taking advantage for this 
purpose of the utter exhaustion in which he sees Him sinking. Had Jesus yielded to 
this suggestion, He would have violated the conditions of that earthly existence to 
which, out of love to us, He had submitted, denied His title as Son of man, in order 
to realize before the time His condition as Son of God, retracted in some sort the act 
of His incarnation, and entered upon that false path which was afterward formulated 
by docetism in a total or partial denial of Christ come in the flesh. Such a course 
would have made His humanity a mere appearance. * 

This is precisely what is expressed in His answer. The word of holy writ, Deut. 
8 : 3, in which He clothes His thought, is admirably adapted, both in form and sub- 
stance, to this purpose : man shall not live by bread alone. This term, man, recalls to 
Satan the form of existence which Jesus has accepted, and from which He cannot 
depart on His own responsibility. The omission of the article *6 before uvBpunuS in 
nine Mjj. gives this word a generic sense which suits the context. But Jesus, while 
thus asserting His entire acceptance of human nature, reminds Satan that man, 
though he be but man, is not left without divine succor. The experience of Israel 
in the wilderness, to which Moses' words refer, proves that the action of divine 
power is not limited to the ordinary nourishment of bread. God can support human 
existence by other material means, such as manna and quails ; He can even, if He 
pleases, make a man live by the mere power of His will. This principle is only the 
application of a living monotheism to the sphere of physical life. By proclaiming 
it in this particular instance, Jesus declares that, in His career, no physical necessity 
shall ever compel Him to deny, in the name of His exalted Sonship, the humble 
mode of existence He adopted in making Himself man, until it shall please God Him* 
self to transform His condition by rendering it suitable to His essence as Son of God. 
Although Son, He will nevertheless remain subject, subject unto the weakness even 
of death (Heb. 5 : 8). The words, but by every word of God, are omitted by the Alex. ; 
they are probably taken from Matthew. What reason could there Tiave been for 
omitting them from the text of Luke ? By their suppression, the answer of Jesus 
assumes that brief and categorical character which agrees with the situation. The 
sending of the angels to minister to Jesus, which Matthew and Mark mention at the 
close of their narrative, proves that the expectation of Jesus was not disappointed ; 
God sustained Him, as He had sustained Elijah in the desert in similar circum- 
stances (1 Kings 19). 

The first temptation refers to the person of Jesus ; the second, to His work. 

Third. Vers. 5-8.* Second Temptation. — The occasion of this fresh trial is not 
a physical sensation ; it is an aspiration of the soul. Man, created in the image of 
God, aspires to reign. This instinct, the direction of which is perverted by selfish- 
ness, is nonetheless legitimate in its origin. It received in Israel, through the divine 
promises, a definite aim — the supremacy of the elect people over all others ; and 

* Ver. 5. 2*. B. D. L. some Mnn. omit o 6ia0ofa>S. &. B. L. It ali< *. omit ets TrpoS 
wlnjlw, which is the reading of T. R. with 14 Mjj. the Mnn. Syr. It" 11 *. Ver. 7. All 
the Mjj. read iraaa instead of iravra, the reading of T. R. with only some Mnn. Ver. 
8. B. D. L. Z. several Mnn. Syr. ItP leri i ue , Vg. omit the words vnaye oncou p.ov 
Zarava. Tap, An the T. R., has in its favor only U. Wb. A. A. 



138 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

a very precise form— the Messianic hope. The patriotism of Jesus was kindled at 
this fire (13 : 34, 19 : 41) ; and He must have known, from what He had heard from 
the mouth of God at His baptism, that it was He who was destined to realize this 
. magnificent expectation. It is this prospect, open before the gaze of Jesus, of which 
Satan avails himself in trying to fascinate and seduce Him into a false way. The 
words the devil, and into an high mountain, ver. 5, are omitted by the Alex. It might 
be supposed that this omission arises from the confusion of the two syllables ov which 
teiminate the words avrov and vifirjlov. But is it not easier to believe there has been 
an interpolation from Matthew ? In this case, the complement understood to taking 
Him up, in Luke, might doubtless be, as in Matthew, a mountain. Still, where no 
complement is expressed, it is more natural to explain it as " taking Him into the 
air," It is not impossible that this difference between the two evangelists is con- 
nected with the different order in which they arrange the two last temptations. In 
Luke, Satan, after having taken Jesus up into the air, set Him down on a pinnacle of 
the temple. This order is natural. We are asked how Jesus could be given over in 
this way to the disposal of Satan. Our reply is : Since the Spirit led Him into the 
wilderness in order that He might be tempted, it is not surprising that He should be 
given up for a time, body and soul, to the power of the tempter. It is not said that 
Jesus really saw all the kingdoms of the earth, which would be absurd ; but that 
Satan showed them to Him. This term may very well signify that he made them 
appear before the view of Jesus, in instantaneous succession, Iry a diabolical . phan- 
tasmagoria. He had seen so many great men succumb to a similar mirage, that he 
might well hope to prevail again by this means. The Jewish idea of Satan's rule 
over this visible world, expressed in the words which two of the evangelists put into 
his mouth, may not be so destitute of foundation as many think. Has not Jesus in- 
dorsed it, by calling this mysterious being the prince of this world? Might not Satan, 
as an archangel, have had assigned to him originally as his domain the earth and the 
system to which it belongs ? In this case, he uttered no falsehood when he said, All 
this power has been delivered unto me (ver. 6). The truth of this assertion appears 
further from this very expression, in which he does homage to the sovereignty of 
God, and acknowledges himself His vassal. Neither is it necessary to see imposture 
in the w^ords : And to whomsoever I will, I give it. God certainly leaves to Satan a 
certain use of His sovereignty and powers ; he reigns over the whole extra-divine 
sphere of human life, and has power to raise to the pinnacle of glory the man whom 
he favors. The majesty of such language was doubtless sustained by splendor of 
appearance on the part of him who used it ; and if ever Satan put on his form of an 
angel of light (2 Cor. 11 : 14), it was at this moment which decided his empire. The 
condition which he attaches to the surrender of his power into the hands of Jesus, 
ver. 7, has often been presented as a snare far too coarse for it ever to have been laid 
by such a crafty spirit. Would not, indeed, the lowest of the Israelites have rejected 
such a proposal with horror ? But there is a little word in the text to be taken into 
consideration— ovv, therefore— which puts this condition in logical connection with 
the preceding words. It is not as an individual, it is as the representative of divine 
authority on this earth, that Satan here claims the homage of Jesus. The act of 
prostration, in the East, is practised toward every lawful superior, not in virtue of 
his personal character, but out of regard to the portion of divine power of which he 
is the depositary. For behind every power is ever seen the power of God, from 
whom it emanates. As man, Jesus formed part of the domain intrusted to Satan. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 139 

As called to succeed him, it seemed He could only do it, in so far as Satan himself 
should transfer to Him the investiture of his office. The words, if thou wilt worship 
me, are not therefore an appeal to the ambition of Jesus ; they express the condition 
sine qua non laid down by the ancient Master of the world to the installation of Jesus 
in the Messianic sovereignty. In speaking thus, Satan deceived himself only in one 
point; this was, that the kingdom which was about to commence was in any lespect 
a continuation of his own, or depended on a transmission of power from him. It 
would have been very different, doubtless, had Jesus proposed to realize such a con- 
ception of the Messianic kingdom as found expression in the popular piejudice of 
His age. The Israelitish monarchy, thus understood, would really have been only a 
new and transient form of the kingdom of Satan on this earth— a kingdom of exter- 
nal force, a kingdom of this world. But what Jesus afterward expressed in these 
words, " I am a King ; to this end was I born, but my kingdom is not of this world" 
(John 18 : 37, 36), was already in His heart. His kingdom was the beginning of a 
rule of an entirely new nature ; or, if this kingdom had an antecedent, it was that 
established by God in Zion (Ps. 2). Jesus had just at this very time been invested 
with this at the hands of the divine delegate, John the Baptist. Therefore He had 
nothing to ask from Satan, and consequently «no homage to pay him. This refusal 
was a serious matter. Jesus thereby renounced all power founded upon material 
means and social institutions. He broke with the Messianic Jewish ideal under the re- 
ceived form. He confined Himself, in accomplishing the conquest of the world, to 
spiritual action exerted upon souls ; He condemned Himself to gain them one by one, 
by the labor of conversion and sanetiflcation — a gentle, unostentatious progress, con- 
temptible in the eyes of the flesh, of which the end, the visible reign, was only to 
appear after the lapse of centuries. Further, such an answer was a declaration of 
war against Satan, and on the most unfavorable conditions. Jesus condemned Him- 
self to struggle, unaided by human power, with an adversary having at his disposal 
all human powers ; to march with ten thousand men against a king who was coming 
against Him with twenty thousand (14 : 31). Death inevitably aw T aited Him in this 
path. But He unhesitatingly accepted all this, that He might remain faithful to God, 
from whom alone He determined to receive everything. To render homage to a be- 
ing who had broken with God, would be to honor him in his guilty usurpation, to 
associate Himself with his rebellion. This time again Jesus conveys His refusal in a 
passage of holy writ, Deut. 6 : 13 ; He thereby removes every appearance of answer- 
ing him on mere human authority. The Hebrew text and the LXX. merely say : 
" Thou shalt fear the Lord, and thou shalt serve Him." But it is obvious that this 
word serve includes adoration, and therefore the act of irpooicvveiv, falling down in wor- 
ship, by which it is expressed. The words, Get thee behind me, Satan, in Luke, are 
taken from Matthew ; so is the/*??- in the next sentence. But in thus determining to 
establish His kingdom without any aid from material force, was not Jesus relying so 
much the more on a free use of the supernatural powers with which He had just been 
endowed, in order to overcome, by great miraculous efforts, the obstacles and dangers 
to be encountered in the path He had chosen ? This is the point on which Satan 
puts Jesus to a last proof. The third temptation then refers to the use wiiich He in- 
tends to make of divine power in the course of His Messianic career. 

Fourth. Vers. 9-12.* Third Temptation. — This trial belongs to a higher sphere 

* Ver. 9. The o before viog in the T. R. is omitted in all theMjj. and in 150 Mnn. 



140 COMMENTARY ON" ST. LUKE. 

than that of physical or political life. It is of a purely religious character, and 
touches the deepest and most sacred relations of Jesus with His Father. The dignity 
of a son of God, with a view to which man was created, carries with it the free dis- 
posal of divine power, and of the motive forces of the universe. Does not God Himself 
say to His child : " Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine" ? 
(15 : 31). But in proportion as man is raised to this filial position, and gradually 
reaches divine fellowship, there arises out of this state an ever-increasing danger-— 
that of abusing his great privilege, by changing, as an indiscreet inferior is tempted 
to do, this fellowship into familiarity. From this giddy height to which the grace of 
God has raised him, man falls, therefore, in an instant into" the deepest abyss— into a 
presumptuous use ofGTod's gifts and abuse of His confidence. This pride is more 
unpardonable than that called in Scripture the pride of life. The abuse of God's 
help is a more serious offence than not waiting for it in faith (first temptation), or 
than regarding it as insufficient (second temptation). The higher sphere to which 
this trial belongs is indicated by the scene of it— the most sacred place, Jerusalem 
(the holy city, as Matthew says) and the temple. The term nTepvyiov rod lepov, trans- 
lated pinnacle of the temple, might denote the anterior extremity of the line of meeting 
of two inclined planes, forming the roof of the sacred edifice. But in this case, vaov 
would have been required rather than lepov (see 1 : 9). Probably, therefore, it is some 
part of the court that is meant— either Solomon's Porch, which was situated on the 
eastern side of the temple platform, and commanded the gorge of the Kedron, or the 
Royal Porch, built on the south side of this platform, and from which, as Josephus 
says, the eye looked down into an abyss. The word -rrrepvytov would denote the 
coping of this peristyle. Such a position is a type of the sublime height to which 
Satan sees Jesus raised, and whence he would have Him cast Himself down into an 
abyss. 

The idea of this incomparable spiritual elevation is expressed by these words : If 
thou art a Son of God. The Alex, rightly omit the art. before the word Son. For 
it is a question here of the filial character, and not of the personality of the Son. 
" If thou art a being to whom it appertains to call God thy Father in a unique sense, 
do not fear to do a daring deed, and give God an opportunity to show the particular 
care He takes of thee." And as Satan had observed that Jesus had twice replied to 
him by the word of God, he tries in his turn to avail himself of this weapon. He 
applies here the promise (Ps. 91 : 11, 12) by an a fortiori argument : " If God has 
promised thus to keep the righteous, how much more His well-beloved Son !" The 
quotation agrees with the text of the LXX., with the exception of its omitting the 
words in all thy ways, which Matthew also omits ; the latter omits, besides, the pre- 
ceding words, to keep thee. It has been thought that this omission was made by 
Satan himself, who would suppress these words with a view to make the application 
of the passage more plausible, unduly generalizing the promise of the Psalm, which, 
according to the context, applies to the righteous only in so far as he walks in the 
ways of obedience. This is very subtle. What was the real bearing of this temp- 
tation ? With God, power is always employed in the service of goodness, of love ; 
this is the difference between God and Satan, between divine miracle and diabolical 
sorcery. Now the devil in this instance aims at nothing less than making Jesus pass 
from one of these spheres to the other, and this in the name of that most sacred and 
tender element in the relationship between two beings that love each other — con- 
fidence. If Jesus succumbs to the temptation by calling on the Almighty to deliver 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 141 

Him from a peril into which He has not been thrown in the service of goodness, He 
puts God in the position of either refusing His aid, and so separating His cause from 
His own — a divorce between the Father and the Son — or of setting free the exercise 
of His omnipotence, at least for a moment, from the control of holiness— a violation 
of His own nature. Either way, it would be all over with Jesus, and even, if we 
dare so speak, with God. 

Jesus characterizes the impious nature of this suggestion as tempting God. ver. 12. 
This term signifies putting God to the alternative either of acting in a way opposed 
to His plans or His nature, or of compromising the existence or safety of a person 
closely allied to Him. It is confidence carried to such presumption, as to become 
treason against the divine majesty. It has sometimes been thought that Satan wanted 
to induce Jesus to establish His kingdom by some miraculous demonstration, by some 
prodigy of personal display, which, accomplished in the view of a multitude of wor- 
shippers assembled in the temple, would have drawn to Him the homage of all Israel. 
But the narrative makes no allusion to any effect to be produced by this miracle. It 
is a question here of a whim rather than of a calculation, of divine force placed at 
the service of caprice rather than of a deliberate evil purpose. For the third time 
Jesus borrows the form of His reply from Scripture, and, which is remarkable, again 
from Deuteronomy (6 : 16). This book, which recorded the experience of Israel dur- 
ing the forty years' sojourn in the desert, had perhaps been the special subject of 
Jesus' meditations during His own sojourn in the wilderness. The plural, ye shall 
not tempt, in the O. T. is changed by Jesus into the singular, thou shalt not tempt. 
Did this change proceed from a double meaning which Jesus designedly introduced 
into this passage ? While applying it to Himself in His relation to God, He seems, 
in fact, to apply it at the same time to Satan in relation to Himself ; as if He meant 
to say : Desist, therefore, now from tempting me, thy God. 

Almost all interpreters at the present day disapprove the order followed by Luke, 
and prefer Matthew's, who makes this last temptation the second. It seems to me, 
that if the explanation we have just given is just, there can be no doubt that Luke's 
order is preferable. The man who is no longer man, the Christ who is no longer 
Christ, the Son who is no longer Son — such are the three degrees of the temptation.* 
The second might appear the most exalted and dangerous to men who had grown up 
in the midst of the theocracy ; and it is intelligible that the tradition found in the 
Jewish-Christian churches, the type of which has been preserved in the first Gospel, 
should have made this peculiarly Messianic temptation (the second in Luke) the 
crowning effort of the conflict. But in reality it was not so ; the true order his- 
torically, in a moral conflict, must be that which answers to the moral essence of 
things. 

Fifth. Yer. 13. Historical Conclusion.— The expression ndvra Treipaafiov does not 
signify all the temptation (this would require oaov), but every kind of temptation. 
We have seen that the temptations mentioned refer, one to the person of Jesus, 
another to the nature of His w r ork, the third to His use of the divine aid accorded to 
Him for this work ; they are therefore very varied. Further, connected as they are, 
they form a complete cycle ; and this is expressed in the term cvvTe?Joas, having 
finished, fulfilled. Nevertheless Luke announces, in the conclusion of his narrative, 

* ^M. Godet is not as perspicuous here as usual. The original is : " L'homme 
qui n est plus homme, le Christ qui n'est plus Christ, le Fils qui n'est plus Fils, 
voila . . ."] 



142 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

the future return of Satan to subject Jesus to a fresh trial. If the words uxpi natpov 
signified, as they are often translated, for a season, we might think that this future 
temptation denotes in general the trials to which Jesus would be exposed during the 
course of His ministry. But these words signify, until a favorable time. Satan ex- 
pects, therefore, some new opportunity, just such a special occasion as the previous 
one. This conflict, foretold so precisely, can be none other than that of Gethsemane. 
" This is the hour and power of darkness," said Jesus at that very time (22 : 53) ; 
and a few moments before, according to John (14 : 30), He had said : " The prince 
of this world cometh." Satan then found a new means of acting on the soul of 
Jesus, through the fear of suffering. Just as in the desert he thought he could dazzle 
this heart, that had had no experience of life, with the eclat of success and the in- 
toxication of delight ; so in Gethsemane he tried to make it swerve by the nightmare 
of punishment and the anguish of grief. . These, indeed, are the two levers by which 
he succeeds in throwing men out of the path of obedience. 

Luke omits here the fact mentioned by Matthew and Mark, of the approach of 
angels to minister to Jesus. It is no dogmatic repugnance which makes him omit it, 
for he mentions an instance wholly similar, 22 : 43. Therefore he was ignorant of 
it ; and consequently he was not acquainted with the two other narratives. 

THE TEMPTATION. 

We shall examine — 1st. The nature of this fact ; 2d. Its object ; 3d. The three 
narratives. 

1st. JSature of the Temptation. — The ancients generally understood this account 
literally. They believed that the devil appeared to Jesus in a bodily form, and actually 
carried Him away to the mountain and to the pinnacle of the temple. But, to say 
nothing of the impossibility of finding anywhere a mountain from which all the king- 
doms of the world could be seen, the Bible does not mention a single visible appear- 
ance of Satan ; and in the conflict of Gethsemane, which, according to Luke, is a 
renewal of this, the presence of the enemy is not projected into the world of sense. 
Have we to do then here, as some moderns have thought, with a human tempter des- 
ignated metaphorically by the name Satan, in the sense in which Jesus addressed 
Peter, " Get thee behind me, Satan," with an envoy from the Sandedrim, exgr., who 
had come to test Him (Kuinoel), or with the deputation from the same body men- 
tioned in John 1 : 19, et seq., who, on their return from their interview with the fore- 
runner, met Jesus in the desert, and there besought His Messianic co-operation, by 
offering Him the aid of the Jewish authorities (Lange) ? But it was not until after 
Jesus had already left the desert and rejoined John on the banks of the Jordan, that 
He was publicly*pointed out by the latter as the Messiah.* Up to this time no one 
knew Him as such. Besides, if this hypothesis affords a sufficient explanation of the 
second temptation (in the order of Luke), it will not explain either the first or the 
third. 

Was this narrative, then, originally nothing more than a moral lesson conveyed 
in the form of a parable, in which Jesus inculcated on His disciples some most im- 
portant maxims for their future ministry ? Never to use their miraculous power for 
their personal advantage, never to associate with wicked men for the attainment of 
good ends, never to perform a miiacle in an ostentatious spirit — these werethe pre- 
cepts which Jesus had enjoined upon them in a figurative manner, but which they 
took literally (Schleiermacher, Schweizer, Bleek). But first, of all, is it conceivable 
that Jesus should have expressed Himself so awkwardly as to lead to such a mistake? 
Next, how could He have spoken to the apostles of an external empire to be founded 
by them? Further, the Messianic aspect, so conspicuous in the second temptation, 
is completely disguised in that one of the three maxims which, according to the ex- 

* See my " Commentary on the Gospel of John," on 1 : 29. 



COMMENTARY Otf ST. LUKE. 143 

planation of these theologians, ought to correspond with it. Baumgarten-Crusius, 
in order to meet this last objection, applies the three maxims, not to that from which 
the apostles were to abstain, but to that which they must not expect from Jesus Him- 
self : " As Messiah, Jesus meant to say, I shall not seek to satisfy your sensual ap- 
petities, your ambitious aspirations, nor your thirst for miracles." But all this kind 
of interpretation meets with an insurmountable obstacle in Mark's narrative, where 
mention is made merely of the sojourn in the desert, and of the temptation in general, 
without the three particular tests, that is, according to this opinion, without the really 
significant portion of the information being even mentioned. According to this, Mark 
would have lost the kernel and retained only the shell, or, as Keim says, " kept the 
flesh while rejecting the skeleton." In transforming the parable into history, the 
evangelist would have omitted precisely that which contained the idea of the parable. 
Usteri, who had at one time adopted the preceding view, was led by these difficulties 
to regard this narrative as a myth emanating from the Christian consciousness ; and 
Strauss tried to explain the origin of this legend by the Messianic notions current 
among the Jews. But the latter has not succeeded in producing, from the Jewish 
theology, a single passage earlier than the time of Jesus in which the idea of a per- 
sonal conflict between the Messiah and Satan is expressed. As to the Ohrstian con- 
sciousness, would it have been capable of creating complete in all its parts a narra- 
tive so mysterious and profound? Lastly, the remarkably fixed place which this 
event occupies in the three synoptics between the baptism of Jesus and the com- 
mencement of His ministry proves that thi3 element of the evangelical history be- 
longs to the earliest form of Christian instruction. It could not therefore be the pro- 
duct of a later legendary creation. 

Unless all these indications are delusive, the narrative of the temptation must cor- 
respond with a real fact in the life of the Saviour. But might it not be the descrip- 
tion of a purely moral struggle — of a struggle that was confined to the soul of Jesus ? 
Might not Jhe temptation be a vision occasioned by the state of exaltation resulting 
from a prolonged fast, in which the brilliant image of the Jewish Messiah was pre- 
sented to His imagination under the most seductive forms? (Eichhorn, Paulus). Or 
might not this narrative be a condensed summary of a long series of intense medita- 
tions, in which, after having opened His soul with tender sympathy to all the aspira- 
tions of His age and people, Jesus had decidedly broken with them, and determined, 
with a full knowledge of the issue, to become solely the Messiah of God ? (Ullmann.) 
In the first case, the heart whence came this carnal dream could no longer be the 
heart of the Holy One of God, and the perfectly pure life and conscience of Jesus 
become inexplicable. As to the second form in which this opinion is presented, it 
contains undoubtedly elements of truth. The last two temptations certainly corre- 
spond with the most prevalent and ardent aspirations of the Jewish people — the 
expectation of a political Messiah and the thirst for external signs (arjfiela alrelv, 1 
Cor. 1 : 22). 1. But how, from this point of view, is the first temptation to be ex- 
plained ? 2. How could the figure of a personal tempter find its way into such a 
picture ? How did it become its predominating feature, so as to form almost the 
entire picture in Mark's narrative ? 3. Have we not the authentic comment of Jesus 
Himself on this conflict in the passage 11 :21, 22, already referred to (p. 135)? In 
describing this victory over the strong man by the man stronger than he, and laying it 
down as a condition absolutely indispensable to the spoiling of the' stronghold of the 
former, did not Jesus allude to a personal conflict between Himself and the prince of 
this world, such as we find portrayed in the narrative of the temptation ? For these 
rens r ms, Keim. while he recognizes in the temptation, with Ullmann, a sublime fact 
in the moral life of Jesus, an energetic determination of His will by which He abso- 
lutely reuounced any deviation whatever from the divine will, notwithstanding the 
insufficiency of human means, confesses that he cannot refuse to admit the possibil- 
ity of the existence and interposition of the representative of the powers of evil. 

Here we reach the only explanation which, in our opinion, can account for the 
narrative of the temptation. As there is a mutual contact of bodies, so also, in a 
higher sphere than that of matter, there is an action and reaction of spirits on each 
other. It was in this higher sphere to which Jesus was raised, that He, the represen- 
tative of voluntary dependence and filial love to God, met that spirit in whom the 
autonomy of the creature finds its most resolute representative, and in every way, 
and notwithstanding all this spirit's craft, maintained bv conscientious choice His 



144 COMMENTARY 02* ST. LUKE. 

* 
own ruling principle. This victory decided the fate of mankind ; it hecame the 
foundation of the establishment of God's kingdom upon earth. This is the essential 
significance of this event. As to the narrative in which this mysterious scene has 
been disclosed to us, it must be just a symbolical picture, by means of which Jesus 
endeavored to make His disciples understand a fact which, from its very nature, 
could only be fitly described in figurative language. Still we must remember, that 
Jesus being really man, having His spirit united to a body, He needed, quite as much 
as we do, sensible representations as a means of apprehending spiritual facts. Meta- 
phorical language was as natural in His case as» in ours. In all probability, there- 
fore, it was necessary, in order to His fully entering into the conflict between Him 
self and the tempter, that it should assume the scenic (plastigue) foim in which it has 
been preserved to us. While saying this, we do not think that Jesus was transported 
bodily by Satan through the air. We believe that, had He been observed by any 
spectator while the temptation was going on, He would have appeared all through it 
motionless upon the soil of the desert. But though the conflict did not pass out of 
the spiritual sphere, it was none the less real, and the value of this victory was not 
less incalculable and decisive. This view, with some slight shades of difference, is 
that advocated by Theodore of Mopsuestia in the ancient Church, by some of the 
Reformers, and by several modern commentators (Olshausen, Neander, Oosterzee, 
Pressense, etc.). . 

But could Jesus be really tempted, if He was holy ? could He sin, if He was the 
Son of God ? fail in His work, if He was the Redeemer appointed by God ? Asa 
holy being, He could be tempted, because a conflict might arise between some legiti- 
mate bodily want or normal desire of the soul, and the divine will, which for the time 
forbade its satisfaction. The Son could sin, since He had renounced His divine 
mode of existence in the form of God (Phil. 2 : 6), in order to enter into a human 
condition altogether like ours. The Redeemer might succumb, if the question be 
regarded from the standpoint of His personal liberty ; which is quite consietent with 
God being assured by His foreknowledge that He would stand firm. This fore- 
knowledge was one of the factors of His plan, precisely as the foreknowledge of the 
faith of believers is one the elements of His eternal rcpoBecuS (Rom. 8 : 20). 

2d. Object of the Temptation. — The temptation is the complement of the baptism. 
It is the negative preparation of Jesus for His ministry, as the baptism was His 
positive preparation. In His baptism Jesus received impulse, calling, strength. By the 
temptation He was made distinctly conscious of the errors to be shunned, and the perils 
to be feared, on the right hand and on the left. The temptation was the last act of His 
moral education ; it gave Him an insight into all the ways in which His Messianic 
work could possibly be marred. If, from the very first step in His arduous career, 
Jesus kept the path marked out by God's will without deviation, change, or hesi- 
tancy, this bold front and steadfast perseverance are certainly due to His experience 
of the temptation. All the wrong courses possible to Him were thenceforth known ; 
all the rocks had been observed ; and it was the enemy himself who had rendered 
Him this service. And it was for this reason that God apparently delivered Him 
for a brief time into his power. This is just what Matthew's narrative expresses so 
forcibly : " He was led up of the Spirit . . . to be tempted." When He left this 
school, Jesus distinctly understood that, as respects His person, no act of His ministry 
was to have any tendency to lift it out of His human condition ; that, as to His 
work, it was to be in no way assimilated to the action of the powers of this world ; 
and that in the employment of divine power filial liberty was never to become caprice, 
not even under a pretext of blind trust in the help of God. And this programme was 
carried out. His material wants were supplied by the gifts of charity (8 : 3), not by 
miracles ; His mode of life was nothing else than a perpetual humiliation — a pro- 
longation, so to speak, of His incarnation. When laboring to establish His kingdom, 
He unhesitatingly refused the aid of human power — as, for instance, when the multi- 
tude wished to make Him a king (John 6 : 15) ; and His ministry assumed the char- 
acter of an exclusively spiritual conquest. He abstained, lastly, from every miracle 
which had not for its immediate design the revelation of moral perfection, that is to 
say, of the glory of His Father (Luke 11 : 29). These supreme rules of the Messianic 
activity were all learned in that school of trial through which God caused Hirn to 
pass in the desert. 

3d. The Narratives of the Temptation, — It has been maintained that, since John 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 145 

does not relate the temptation, he de facto denies it. But, as we have already observed, 
the staging- point of his narrative belongs to a later time. The narrative of Mark 
(1 : 12, 13), is very summary indeed. It occupies in some respects a middle place 
between the other two, approaching Matthew's in the preface and close (the minis- 
tration of the angels), and Luke's in the extension of the temptation to forty days. 
But it differs from both in omitting the three particular temptations, and by the addi- 
tion of the incident of the wild beasts. Here arises, for those who maintain that one 
of our Gospels was the source of the other, or of both the others, the following 
dilemma : Either the original narrative is Mark's, which the other two have ampli- 
fied (Meyer), or Mark has given a snmmary of the two others (Bleek). There is yet 
a third alternative, by which Holtzmann escapes this dilemma : There was an original 
MarK, and its account was transferred in extenso into Luke and Matthew, but 
abridged by our canonical Mark. This last supposition appears to us inadmissible ; 
for if Matthew and Luke drew from the same written source, how did the strange 
reversal in the order of the two temptations happen ? Schleiermacher supposes — and 
modern crticism approves the suggestion (Holtzmann, p. 213)— that Luke altered the 
order of Matthew in order not to change the scene so frequently, by making Jesus 
leave the desert (for the temple), and then return to it (for the mountain). We really 
wonder how men can seriously put forward such puerilities. Lastly, if the three 
evangelists drew from the same source, the Proto-Mark, whence is the mention of 
the wild beasts in our canonical Mark derived ? The evangelist cannot have imagined 
it without any authority ; and if it was mentioned in the common source, it could 
not have been passed over, as Holtzmann admits (p. 70), by Luke and Matthew. The 
explanation of the latter critic being set aside, there remains the original dilemma. 
Have Matthew and Luke amplified Mark ? How then does it happen that they 
coincide, n r >t only in that part which they have in common with Mark, but quite as 
much, and even mure, in that which is wanting in Mark (the detail of the three temp- 
tations) ? How is it, again that Matthew confines the temptation to the last moment, 
in opposition to the narrative of Mark and Luke ; that Luke omits the succor brought 
to Jesus by the angels, contrary to the account of Matk and Matthew ; and that 
Luke and Matthew omit the detail of the wild beasts, in opposition to their source, 
the narrative of Mark ? They amplify, and yet they abridge ! On the other hand, is 
Mark a compiler from Matthew and Luke ? How, then, is it that he says not a word 
about the forty days' fast ? It is alleged that he desires to avoid long discourses. 
But this lengthened fast belongs to the facts, not to the words. Besides, whence 
does he get the fact ab out the will beasts ? He abridges, and yet he amplifies ! 

All these ditfieulties which arise out of this hypothesis, and which can only be 
removed by supposing that the evangelists used their authorities in an inconceivably 
arbitrary way, disappear of themselves, if we admit, as the common source of the 
three narratives, an oral tradition which circulated in the Church, and reproduced, 
more or less exactly, the original account given by Jesus and transmitted by the 
apostles. Mark only wished to give a brief account, which was all that appeared to 
him necessary for lis readers. The preaching of Peter to Cornelius (Acts 10 : 37, et 
seq.) furnishes an example of this mode of condensing the traditional accounts. 
Mirk had perhaps heard the detail relative to the wild beasts from the mouth of 
Peter himself. The special aim of his narrative is to show us in Jesus the holy 
man raised to his original dignity, as Lord over nature (the wild beasts), and the 
friend of heaven (the angels). Matthew has reproduced the apostolic tradition, in the 
form which it had specially taken in the Jewish-Christian churches. Of this we 
have two indications : I. The ritualistic character which is given in this narrative to 
the fastingof Jesus (having fasted) ; 2. The order of the lasUwo temptations, accord- 
ing to which the .peculiarly Messianic temptation is exhibited as the supreme and 
decisive act of the conflict. As to Luke, the substance of his narrative is the same 
apostolic tradition ; but he was enabled by certain written accounts, or means of 
information, to give 'some details with greater exactness — to restore, for example, the 
actual order of the three temptations. We find him here, as usual, more complete 
than Mark, and more exact, historically speaking, than Matthew. 

And now, His position thus made clear, with God for His sure ally, and Satan 
for His declared adversary, Jesus advances to the field of battle. 



THIED PAET. 



THE MINISTRY OF JESUS IN GALILEE. 

Chap. 4 : 14, 9 : 50. 

The three Synoptics all connect the narrative of the Galilsean ministry with the 
account of the temptation. But the narrations of Matthew and Mark have this pecu- 
liarity, that, according to them, the motive for the return of Jesus to Galilee must have 
been the imprisonment of John the Baptist: "Now when Jesus had heard that 
John was cast into prison, He departed into Galilee" (Matt. 4 : 12) ; " Now, after 
that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee" (Mark 1 : 14). As the temp- 
tation does not appear to have been coincident with the apprehension of John, the 
question arises, Where did Jesus spend the more or less lengthened time that inter- 
vened between these two events, and what was He doing during the interval ? This 
is the first difficulty. There is another : How could the apprehension of John the 
Baptist have induced Jesus to return to Galilee, to the dominions of this very Herod 
who was keeping John in prison ? Luke throws no light whatever on these two 
questions which arise out of the narrative of the Syn. , because he makes no mention 
in this place of the imprisonment of John, but simply connects the commencement 
of the ministry of Jesus with the victory Pie had just achieved in the desert. It is 
John who gives the solution of these difficulties. According to him, there were two 
returns of Jesus to Galilee, w 7 hieh his narrative distinguishes with the greatest care. 
The first took place immediately after the baptism and the temptation (1 : 44). It was 
then that He called some young Galilseans to follow Him, who were attached to the 
forerunner, and shared his expectation of the Messiah. The second is related in 
chap. 4:1; John connects it with the Pharisees' jealousy of John the Baptist, which 
explains the account of the first two Syn. It appears, in fact, according to him, that 
some of the Pharisees were party to the blow which had struck John, and therefore 
we can well understand that Jesus would be more distrustful of them than even of 
Herod.* That the Pharisees had a hand in John's imprisonment, is confirmed by 
the expression delivered, which Matthew and Mark employ. It was they who had 
caused him to be seized and delivered up to Herod. 

The two returns mentioned by John were separated by quite a number of events : 
the transfer of Jesus' place of residence from Nazareth to Capernaum ; His first 
journey to Jerusalem to attend the Passover ; the interview with Nicodemus ; and a 
period of prolonged activity in Judaea, simultaneous with that of John the Baptist, 
who was still enjoying his liberty (John 2 : 12 ; 4 : 43). The second return to Galilee, 

* Baumlein, " Comment, iiber das Evang. Joh," p. 8, 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 147 

which terminated this long ministry in Judaea, did not take place, according to 4 : 35, 
until the month of December iu this same year, so that at least twelve months elapsed 
between it and the former. The Syn., relating only a single return, must have 
blended the two into one. Only there is this difference between them, that in Mat- 
thew and Mark it is rather the idea of the second which seems to predominate, siuce 
they connect it with John's imprisonment ; while Luke brings out more the idea of 
the first, for he associates it with the temptation exclusively. The mingling of these 
two analogous facts— really, however, separated by almost a year — must have taken 
place previously in the oral tradition, since it passed, though not without some 
variations, into our three Synoptics. The narrative of John was expressly designed 
to re-establish this lost distinction (comp. John 2 : 11, 3 : 24, 4 : 54). In this way in 
the Syn. the interval between these two returns to Galilee disappeared, and the two 
residences in Galilee, which were separated from each other by this ministry in 
Judaea, form in them one continuous whole. Further, it is difficult to determine in 
which of the two to place the several facts which the Syn. relate at the commence- 
ment of the Galileean ministry. 

We must not forget that the apostolic preaching, and the popular teaching given 
in the churches, were directed not by any historical interest, but with a view to the 
foundation and confirmation of faith. Facts of a similar nature were therefore 
grouped together in this teaching until they became completely inseparable. We 
shall see, in the same way, the different journeys to Jerusalem, fused by tradition 
into a single pilgrimage, placed at the end of Jesus' ministry. Thus the great con- 
trast which prevails in the synoptical narrative between Galilee and Jerusalem is ex- 
plained. It was only when John, not depending on tradition, but drawing from his 
own personal recollections, restored to this history its various phases and natural 
connections, that the complete picture of the ministry of Jesus appeared before the 
eyes of the Church. 

But why did not Jesus commence His activity in Galilee, as, according to the 
Syn., He would seem to have done. The answer to this question is to be found in 
John 4 : 43-45. In that country, where He spent His youth, Jesus would necessarily 
expect to meet, more than anywhere else, with certain prejudices opposed to the 
recognition of His Messianic dignity. " A prophet hath no honor in his own 
country" (John 4 : 44). This is why He would not undertake His work among His 
Galilaean fellow-countrymen until after He had achieved some success elsewhere. 
The reputation which preceded His return would serve to prepare His wa} T among 
them (John 4 : 45). He had therefore Galilee in view even during this early activity 
in Judaea. He foresaw that this province would be the cradle of His Church ; for 
the yoke of Pharisaical and sacerdotal despotism did not press so heavily on it as on 
the capital and its neighborhood. The chords of human feeling, paralyzed in Judaea 
by false devotion, still vibrated in the hearts of these mountaineers to frank and stir- 
ring appeals, and their ignorance appeared to Him a medium more easily penetrable 
by light from above than the perverted enlightenment of rabbinical science. Comp. 
the remarkable passage, 10 : 21. 

It is not easy to make out the plan of this part, for it describes a continuous prog- 
ress without any marked bieaks ; it is a picture of the inward and outward progress 
of the work of Jesus in Galilee. Ritschl is of opinion that the progress of the story 
is determined by the growing hostility of the adversaries of Jesus ; and accordingly 
he adopts this division : 4 . 16, 6 : 11, absence of conflict ; 6 : 12, 11 : 54, the hostile 



148 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

attitude assumed by the two adversaries toward each other. But, -first, the first 
symptoms of hostility break out before 6 : 12 ; second, the passage 9 :51, which is 
passed over by the division of Ritschl, is evidently, in the view of the author, one of 
the principal connecting links in the narrative ; third, the growing hatred of the ad- 
versaries of Jesus is only an accident of His work, and in no way the governing 
motive of its development. It is not there, therefore, that we must seek the principle 
of the division. The author appears to us to have marked out a route for himself by 
a series of facts, in which there is a gradation easily perceived. At first Jesus 
preaches without any following of regular disciples ; soon He calls about Him some 
of the most attentive of His hearers, to make them His permanent disciples ; after a 
certain time, when these disciples had become very numerous, He raises twelve of 
them to the rank of apostles ; lastly, He intrusts these twelve with their first mission, 
and makes them His evangelists. This gradation in the position of His helpers 
naturally corresponds, first, with the internal progress of His teaching ; second, with 
the local extension of His work ; third, with the increasing hostility of the Jews, 
with whom Jesus breaks more and more, in proportion as He gives organic form to 
His own work. It therefore furnishes a measure of the entire movement. We are 
guided by it to the following division : 

First Cycle, 4 .: 14-44, extending to the call of the first disciples. 

Second Cycle, 5 : 1, 6 : 11, to the nomination of the twelve. 

Third Cycle, 6 : 12, 8 : 56, to their first mission. 

Fourth Cycle, 9 : 1-50, to the departure of Jesus for Jerusalem. 

At this point the work of Jesus in Galilee comes to an end ; He bids adieu to this 
field of labor, and, setting His face toward Jerusalem, He carries with Him into 
Judaea the result of His previous labors, His Galilsean Church. 

first cycle, —chap. 4 : 14-44. 

Visits to Nazareth and to Capernaum. 

The following narratives are grouped around two names — Nazareth (vers. 14-30) 
and Capernaum (vers. 31-44). 

1. Visit to Nazareth : vers. 14-30. This portion opens with a general glance at 
the commencement of the active labors of Jesus in Galilee : 14, 15. Then, resting 
on this foundation, but separable from it, as a particular example, we have the nar- 
rative of His preaching at Nazareth : vers. 16-30. 

First. Vers. 14, 15: The 14th verse is, as we have shown, the complement of 
ver 1 (see ver. 1) The verb, he returned, comprehends, according to what pre- 
cedes, the two returns mentioned, John 1 : 44 and 4 : 1, and even a third, understood' 
between John 5 and 6. The words, in the power of the Spirit, do not refer, as many 
have thought, to an impulse from above, which urged Jesus to return to Galilee, but 
to His possession of the divine powers which He had received at His baptism, and 
with which He was now about to teach and act ; comp. filled with the Spirit, 
ver. 1. Luke evidently means that he returned different from what he was when He 
left. Was this supernatural power of Jesus displayed solely in His preaching, or in 
miracles also already wrought at this period, though not related by Luke ? Since the 
miracle at Cana took place, according to John, just at this time, we incline to the lat- 
ter meaning, which, considering the term employed, is also the more natural. In 
this way, what is said of His fame, which immediately spread through all the region 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 149 

round about, is readily explained. Preaching alone would scarcely have been suffi- 
cient to have brought about this result. Meyer brings in here the report of the 
miraculous incidents of the baptism ; but these probably had not been witnessed by 
any one save Jesus and John, and no allusion is made to them subsequently. The 
15th verse relates how, after His reputation had prepared the way for Him, He came 
Himself (avroq) ; then how tbey all, after hearing Him, ratified the favorable judg- 
ment which His fame had brought respecting Him {glorified of all). The synagogues, 
in which Jesus fulfilled His itinerant ministry, were places of assembly existing from 
the return of the captivity, perhaps even earlier. (Bleek finds the proof of an earlier 
date in Ps. 74 : 8.) "Wherever there was a somewhat numerous Jewish population, 
even in heathen countries, there were such places of worship. They assembled in 
them on the Sabbath day, also on the Monday and Tuesday, and on court and market 
days. Any one wishing to speak signified his intention by rising (at least according 
to this passage ; comp. also Acts 13 : 16). But as all teaching was founded on the 
Scriptures, to speak was before anything else to read. The reading finished, he 
taught, sitting down (Acts 13 : 16, Paul speaks standing). Order was maintained by 
the apxiGwdfiuyoi, or presidents of the synagogue. Vers. 14 and 15 form the fourth 
definite statement in the account of the development of the person and work of Jesus ; 
comp. 2 : 40, 52, and 3 : 23. 

Second. Vers. 16-30. Jesus did not begin by preaching at Nazareth. In His 
view, no doubt, the inhabitants of this city stood in much the same relation to the 
people of the rest of Galilee as the inhabitants of Galilee to the rest of the Jewish 
people ; He knew that in a certain sense His greatest difficulties would be encounter, 
ed there, and that it would be prudent to defer his visit until the time when His rep- 
utation, being already established in the rest of the country, would help to counter- 
act the prejudice resulting from His former lengthened connection with the people 
of the place. 

Vers. 16-19.* The Reading. — Ver. 16. Kal. " And in these itinerancies He 
came also." John (2 : 12) and Matthew (4 : 13) refer to this time the transfer of the 
residence of Jesus (and also, according to John, of that of His mother and brethren) 
from Nazareth to Capernaum, which naturally implies a visit to Nazareth. Besides, 
John places the miracle at the marriage at Cana at the same time. Now, Cana be- 
ing such a very short distance from Nazareth, it would have been an affectation on 
the part of Jesus to be staying so near His native town, and not visit it. The words, 
where He had been brought up, assign the motive of His proceeding. The expression, 
according to His custom, cannot apply to the short time which had elapsed since His 
return to Galilee, unless, with Bleek, we regard it as an indication that this event is 
of later date, which indeed is possible, but in no way necessary. It rather applies 
to the period of His childhood and youth. This remark is in close connection with 
the words, where he had been brought up. Attendance at the synagogue was, as Keim 
has well brought out (t. i. p. 434), a most important instrument in the religious and 

* Ver. 16. T. R., with K. L. II. manyMnn., Nu^ape- (s«— peQ with 11 Mjj.) ; D., 
Napped; &. B.* Z. NaCopa ; A., Wafrpar ; A., NafapaO. Ver. 17. A. B. L. Z. Syr. 
read avoids iustead of avaKTv£as, which is the reading of 16 Mjj. Mnu. B. It. Ver. 
18. Twenty Mjj. read evayyeXiaaadac instead of evayyeXi&aQac, which is the reading 
of T. R. with merely some Mnn. Ver. 19. 5*. B. D. L. Z. It. omit the words 
taoaoQai r. cwrerp. r. tcaptiiav, which is the reading of T. R. with 15 Mjj., the greater 
part of the Mnn. Syr. 



150 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

intellectual development of Jesus. Children had access to this worship from the age 
of five or six ; they were compelled to attend it when they reached thirteen (Keim, t. 
i. p. 431). But it was not solely by means of these Scripture lessons, heard regularly 
in the synagogue several times a week, that Jesus learned to know the O. T. so well. 
There can be no doubt, as Keim says, that He possessed a copy of the sacred book 
Himself. Otherwise He would not have known how to read, as He is about to do 
here. The received reading, having unrolled, ver. 17, is preferable to the Alex, var., 
having opened. The sacred volumes were in the form of rectangular sheets, rolled 
round a cylinder. By the expression, He found, Luke gives us to understand that 
Jesus, surrendering Himself to guidance from above, read at the place where the roll 
opened of itself. We cannot then infer, as Bengel does, from the fact of this pas- 
sage being read by the Jews on the day of atonement, that this feast was being ob- 
served on that very day. Besides, the present course of the Haphtaroth, or readings 
from the prophets, dates from a later period. 

This passage belongs to the second part of Isaiah (61 : 1 etseq.). This long con- 
secutive prophecy is generally applied to the return from the captivity. The only 
term which would suggest this explanation in our passage is alx/ia?.uToic t properly 
prisoners of tear, ver. 19. But this word is used with a more general meaning. St. 
Paul applies it to his companions in work and activity (Col. 4 : 10). The term 
tttuxos, poor, rather implies that the people are settled in their own country. The re- 
markable expression, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, makes the real thought 
of the prophet sufficiently clear. There was in the life of the people of Israel a year 
of grace, which might very naturally become a type of the Messianic era. This was 
the year of Jubilee, which returned every fifty years (Lev. 26). By means of this 
admirable institution, God had provided for a periodical social restoration in Israel. 
The Israelite who had sold himself into slavery regained his liberty ; families which 
had alienated their patrimony recovered possession ; a wide amnesty was granted to 
persons imprisoned for debt — so many types of the work of Him who was to restore 
spiritual liberty to mankind, to free them from their guilt, and restore to them their 
divine inheritance. Jesus, therefore, could not have received from His Father a text 
more appropriate to His present position — the inauguration of His Messianic min- 
istry amid the scenes of His previous life. 

The first words, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, are a paraphrase of the term 
rPI2/D> Messiah (XpioTOS, Anointed). Jesus, in reading these words, could not but 
apply them to His recent baptism. The expression evenev ov cannot signify here 
wherefore: " The Spirit is upon me ; wherefore God hath anointed me ;" this would 
be contrary to the meaning. The LXX. have used this conjunction to translate ]y% 
which in the original signifies, just as"]^tf iy\ because, a meaning which the Greek 
expression will also bear (on this account that, propterea quod). On the first day of the 
year of Jubilee, the priests went all through the land, announcing with sound of 
trumpets the blessings brought by the opening year (jubilee, from 73*1, to sound a 
trumpet). It is to this proclamation of grace that the words, to announce good news to 
t7w poor, undoubtedly allude, Lev. 25 : 6, 14, 25. The words, to heal the broken in 
heart, which the Alex, reading omits, might have been introduced into the text from 
the O. T. ; but, in our view, they form the almost indispensable basis of the word of 
Jesus, ver. 23. We must therefore retain them, and attribute their omission to an 
act of negligence occasioned by the long string of infinitives. The term KTjpv^at 
ayeciv, to proclaim liberty, employed ver. 19, also alludes to the solemn proclamation 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. L51 

of the jubilee. This word a&eotv is found at almost every verse, in the LXX., in the 
statute enjoining this feast. Bleek himself observes that the formula -fl"n N1p> 
which corresponds to those two Greek terms, is that which is employed in connection 
with the jubilee ; but notwithstanding, this does not prevent his applying the pass- 
age, according to the common prejudice, to the return from the captivity ! The 
prisoners who recovered their freedom are amnestied malefactors as well as slaves 
set free at the beginning of this year of grace. The image of the blind restored to 
sight does not, at the first glance, accord with that of the jubilee ; but it does not 
any better suit the figure of the return from the captivity. And if this translation of 
the Hebrew text were accurate, we should have in either case to allow that the 
prophet had. departed from the general image with which he had started. But the 
term in Isaiah (CH'iCN- properly bound) denotes captives, not blind persons. The 
expression nip HpfiD signifies, it is true, the opening of the eyes, not the opening of a 
prison. But the captives coming forth from their dark dungeon are represented under 
the figure of blind men suddenly restored to sight. The words, to set at liberty them 
that are bruised, are taken from another passage in Isaiah (58 : 6). Probably in 
Luke's authority this passage was already combined with the former (as often hap- 
pens with Paul). The figurative sense of reQpavcfievoi, pierced through, is required by 
the verb to send away. The acceptable year of the Lord is that in which He is 
pleased to show mankind extraordinary favors. Several Fathers have inferred from 
this expression that the ministry of Jesus only lasted a single year. This is to con- 
found the type and the antitype. 

Vers. 20-22. The Preaching. — The description of the assembly, ver. 20, is so dra- 
matic that it appears to have come from an eye-witness. The sense of vp^aro, He 
began (ver. 21), is not that these were the first words of His discourse ; this expression 
describes the solemnity of the moment when, in the midst of a silence resulting from 
universal attention, the voice of Jesus sounded through the synagogue. The last 
words of the verse signify literally, " This word is accomplished in your ears ;" in 
other words, " This preaching to which you are now listening is itself the realization 
of this prophecy." Such was the text of Jesus' discourse. Luke, without going 
into His treatment of His theme (comp. , for example, Matt. 11 : 28-30), passes (ver. 
22) to the impression produced. It was generally favorable. The term bare witness 
alludes to the favorable reports which had reached them ; they proved for themselves 
that His fame was not exaggerated. 'EBav/iaCov signifies here, they were astonished 
(John 7 : 21 ; Mark 6 : 6), rather than they admired. Otherwise the transition to 
what follows would be too abrupt. So the term gracious words describes rather the 
matter of Jesus' preaching — its description of the works of divine grace— than the 
impression received by His hearers. They were astonished at this enumeration of 
marvels hitherto unheard of. The words, which proceeded forth out of His mouth, 
express the fulness with which this proclamation poured forth from His heart. 

Two courses were here open to the inhabitants of Nazareth : either to surrender 
themselves to the divine instinct which, while they listened to this call, was drawing 
them to Jesus as the anointed of whom Isaiah spake ; or to give place to an intellec- 
tual suggestion, allow it to suppress the emotion of the heart, and cause faith to 
evaporate in criticism. They took the latter course : Is not this Joseph's son? An- 
nouncements of such importance appeared to them altogether out of place in the 
mouth of this young man, whom they had known from his childhood. "What a 
contrast between the cold reserve of this question, and the enthusiasm which wel- 



152 COMMENTARY 02* ST. LUKE. 

corned Jesus everywhere else (glorified of all, ver, 15) J For them this was just such 
a critical moment as was to occur soon after for the inhabitants of Jerusalem (John 
2 : 13-22). Jesus sees at a glance the bearing of this remark which went round 
among His hearers : when the impression He has produced ends in a question of 
curiosity, all is lost ; and He tells them so. 

Vers. 23-27.* T7w Colloquy. — " And He said to them, Ye will surely say unto me 
this proverb, Physician, heal thyself ; whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, 
do also here in thy country. 24. And He said, Verily I say unto you, No proj)het is 
accepted in his own country. 25. But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in 
Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, 
when great famine was throughout all the land ; 26. But unto none of them was 
Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. 27. 
And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet ; and none of 
them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian." The meaning surely, which 7ravrwS 
often has, would be of no force here ; it rather means wholly, nothing less than: 1 ' 
" The question which you have just put to me is only the first symptom of unbelief. 
From surprise you will pass to derision. Thus you will quickly arrive at the end of 
the path in which you have just taken the first step.' ' The term napa{3oA7}, parable, 
denotes any kind of figurative discourse, whether a complete narrative or a short sen- 
tence, couched in an image, like proverbs. Jesus had just attributed to Himself, 
applying Isaiah's words, the office of a restorer of humanity. He had described the 
various ills from which His hearers were suffering, and directed their attention to 
Himself as the physician sent to heal them. This is what the proverb cited refers to. 
<Comp. la-pos, a physician, with IdoaoQai, to heal, ver. 18). Thus : " You are going 
even to turn to ridicule what you have just heard, and to say to me, Thou who pre- 
tendest to save humanity from its misery, begin by delivering thyself from thine 
own." But, as thus explained, the proverb does not appear to be in connection 
with the following proposition. Several interpreters have proposed another explana- 
tion : ' ' Before attempting to save mankind, raise thy native town from its obscurity, 
and make it famous by miracles like those which thou must have wrought at 
Capernaum." But it is very forced to explain the word thyself in the sense of thy 
native town. Tbe connection of this proverb with the following words is explained, 
if we see in the latter a suggestion of the means by which Jesus may yet prevent the 
contempt with which He is threatened in His own country : " In order that we may 
acknowledge you to be what you claim, the Saviour of the people, do here some such 
miracle as it is said thou hast done at Capernaum." This speech betrays an ironical 
doubt respecting those marvellous things which were attributed to Him. 

It appears from this passage, as well as from Matt. 13 : 58 and Mark 6 : 5, that 
Jesus performed no miracles at Nazareth. It is even said that " He could do no mir- 
acle there." It was a moral impossibility, as in other similar instances (Luke 11 : 16, 
29 ; 23 : 35). It proceeded from the spirit in which the demand was made : it was 
a miracle of ostentation that was required of Him (the third temptation in the desert) ; 
and it was what He could not grant, without doing what the Father had not shown Him 

* Ver. 23. &. B. D. L. some Mnn. read eig ttjv instead of ev rrj. Ver. 24. Ka<j>apvaovfi 
in &. B. D, X. It. Vg. instead of Kanepvaovu which is the reading of T. R. with 15 
other Mjj. the Mnn. and Vss. Very nearly the same in the other passages. Ver. 
27. The mss. are divided between Strfwvtof (Alex.) and ZiduvoS (T. R. Byz.). Marciou 
probably placed this verse after 17 : 19. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUK'E. 153 

(John 5 : 19, 30). The allusion to the miracles at Capernaum creates surprise, 
because none of them have been recorded ; and modern interpreters generally find in 
these words a proof of the chronological disorder which here prevails in Luke's nar- 
rative. He must have placed this visit much too soon. This conclusion, however, 
is not so certain as it appears. The expression, in the poicer of the Spirit (ver. 14), 
contains by implication, as we have seen, an indication of miracles wrought in those 
early days, and among these we must certainly rank the miracle at the marriage feast 
at Cana (John 2). This miracle was followed by a residence at Capernaum (John 
2 : 12), during which Jesus may have performed some miraculous works ; and it was 
not till after that that He preached publicly at Nazareth. These early miracles have 
been effaced by subsequent events, as that at Cana would have been, if John had not 
rescued it from oblivion. If this is so, the twenty-third verse, which seems at first 
sight not to harmonize with the previous narrative, would just prove with what 
fidelity Luke has preserved the purport of the sources whence he drew his informa- 
tion. John in the same way makes allusion (2 : 22) to miracles which he has not 
recorded. The preposition els before the name Capernaum appears to be the true 
reading : " done at and in favor of Capernaum. " 

The 6£ (ver. 24) indicates opposition. " So far from seeking to ^obtain your con- 
fidence by a display of miracles, 1 shall rather accept, as a prophet, the fate of all the 
prophets." The proverbial saying here cited by Jesus is found in the scene Matt, lo 
and Mark 6, and, with some slight modification, in John 4 : 44. None have more 
difficulty in discerning the exceptional character of an extraordinary man than those 
who have long lived with him on terms of familiarity. The Se (ver. 25) is again of 
an adversative force : If by your unbelief you prevent my being your physician, there 
are others whom you will not prevent me from healing. The expression verily 
announces something important ; and it is evident that the application of the saying, 
ver. 24, in the mind of Jesus, has a much wider reference than the instance before 
Him ; Nazareth becomes, in His view, a type of unbelieving Israel. This is proved 
by the two following examples, w T hich refer lo the relations of Israel with the heathen. 
He speaks of a famine of three years and a half. From the expressions of the O. T., 
during tliese years (1 Kings 17 : 1), and the third year (18 : 1), we can only in strict- 
ness infer a drought of two years and a half. But as this same figure, three years and 
a half, is found in Jas. 5 : 17, it was probably a tradition of the Jewish schools. 
The reasoning would be this : The famine must have lasted for a certain time after 
the drought. There would be a desire also to make out the number which, ever since 
the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, had become the emblem of times of national 
calamity. The expression, all the land, denotes the land of Israel, with the known 
countries bordering upon it. The Alex, reading 2tdavia$, the territory of Sidon, may 
be a correction derived from the LXX. The reading Zititivo;, the city of Sidon itself, 
makes the capital the centre on which the surrounding cities depend. The somewhat 
incorrect use of el fir), except, is explained by the application of this restriction not to 
the special notion of Israelitish widowhood, but to the idea of widowhood in general ; 
the same remark applies to ver. 27, Matt. 12 : 4, Gal. 1 : 19, and other passages. The 
second example (ver. 27) is taken from 2 Kings 5 : 14. The passage 2 Kings 7 *. o 
and some others prove how very prevalent leprosy was in Israel at this time. The 
prophecy contained in these examples is being fulfilled to this hour : Israel is deprived 
of the works of grace and marvels of healing which the Messiah works among the 
Gentiles. 



♦ 

154 COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 

Vers. 28-30.* Conclusion. — The threat contained in these examples exasperates 
them : " Thou rejectest us : we reject thee," was their virtual reply. The term 
EK0d%?ieiv, to cast out, denotes that they set upon Him with violence. About forty 
minutes distant from Nazareth, to the south-east, they show a wall of rock eighty feet 
high, and (if we add to it a second declivity which is found a little below) about 300 
feet above the plain of Esdraelon. It is there that tradition places this scene. But 
Robinson regards this tradition as of no great antiquity. Besides, it does not agree 
with the expression : on which the city teas built. Nazareth spreads itself out upon the 
eastern face of a mountain, where there is a perpendicular wall of rock from 40 to 50 
feet high. This nearer locality agrees better with the text. The vote of the Alex, 
reading signifies : so as to be able to cast Him down. It was for that purpose that* 
they took the trouble of going up so high. This reading is preferable to the T. E. : 
etS ro, for the purpose of. The deliverance of Jesus was neither a miracle nor an 
escape ; He passed through the group of these infuriated people with a majesty which 
overawed them. The history offers some similar incidents. We cannot say, as one 
critic does : " In the absence of any other miracle, He left them this." 

The greater part of modern critics regard this scene as identical with that of Matt. 
13 and Mark 6, placed by these evangelists at a much later period. They rely, 1st, 
On the expression of surprise : Is not this the son of Joseph t and on the proverbial 
saying, ver. 24, which could not have been repeated twice within a few months ; 2d, 
On the absence of miracles common to the two narratives ; 3d, On the words of ver. 
23, which suppose that Jesus had been laboring at Capernaum prior to this visit to 
Nazareth. But how in this case are the following differences to be explained ? 1. 
In Matthew and Mark there is not a word about the attempt to put Jesus to death. 
All goes off peaceably to the very end. 2. Where are certain cases of healing recorded 
by Matthew (ver. 58) and Mark (ver. 5) to be placed ? Before the preaching ? This 
is scarcely compatible with the words put into the mouth of the inhabitants of Naz- 
areth (ver. 23, Luke). After the preaching? Luke's narrative absolutely excludes 
this supposition. 3. Matthew and Mark place the visit which they relate at the cul- 
minating point of the Galilaian ministry and toward its close, while Luke commences 
his account of this ministry with the narrative which we have just been studying. 
An attempt has been made to explain this difference in two ways : Luke may have 
wished, in placing this narrative here, to make us see the reason which induced Jesus 
to settle at Capernaum instead of Nazareth (Bleek, Weizsacker) ; or he may have 
made this scene the opening of Jesus' ministry, because it prefigures the rejection of 
the Jews and the salvation of the Gentiles, which is the leading idea of his book 
(Holtzmann). But how is such an arbitrary transposition to be harmonized with his 
intention of writing in order, so distinctly professed by Luke (1 : 4) ? These difficulties 
have not yet been solved. Is it then impossible, that after a first attempt among His 
fellow • citizens at the beginning of His ministry, Jesus should . have made a second 
later on ? On the contrary, is it not quite natural that, before leaving Galilee forever 
(and thus at the very time to which Matthew and Mark refer their account), He 
should have addressed Himself once more to the heart of His fellow-countrymen, 
and that, if He had again found it closed against Him, the shock would nevertheless 
have been less violent than at the first encounter ? However this may be, if the two 
narratives refer to the same event, as present criticism decides, Luke's appears to me 
to deserve the preference, and for two reasons : 1. The very dramatic and detailed 
picture he has drawn leaves no room for doubting the accuracy and absolute original- 
ity of the source whence he derived his information ; while the narratives of Matthew 
and Mark betray, by the absence of all distinctive features, their traditional origin, 
2. John (4 : 4) cites, at the beginning of his account of the Galilcean ministry, the say- 
ing recorded by the three evangelists as to the rejection which every prophet must 
undergo from his own people. He quotes it as a maxim already previously announced 

* Ver. 29. $. B. D. L. some Mnn., ucts instead of «s to. 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 155 

by Jesus, and "which had influenced from the first the course of His ministry. Now, 
as the three Syn. are agreed in referring this saying to a visit at Nazareth, this quota- 
tion in John clearly proves that the visit in question took place at the commencement 
(Luke), and not in the middle or at the end of the Galilsean ministry (Matthew and 
Mark). We are thus brought to th% conclusions : 1. That the visit related by Luke 
is historical ; 2. That the recollection of it was lost to tradition, in common with many 
other facts relating to the beginning of the ministry (marriage at Cana, etc.) ; 3. That 
it was followed by another toward the end of the Galiltean ministry, in the traditional 
account of which several incidents were introduced belonging to the former. As to 
the sojourn at Capernaum,, implied in Luke 5 : 23, we have already seen that it is 
included in the general description, ver. 15. John 2 ; 12 proves that from the first 
tlfe attention of Jesus was drawn to this city as a suitable place in which to reside. 
His first disciples lived near it. The synagogue of Capernaum must then have been 
one of the first in which He preached, and consequently one of those mentioned in 
ver. 15. 

2. Residence at Capernaum : vers. 31-44. Five sections : 1st. A general survey 
(vers. 31 and 32) ; 2d The healing of a demoniac (vers. 33-37) : M. That of Peter's 
mother-in-law (vers. 38 and 39) ; 4lh. Various cures (vers. 40-42) ; 5t7i. Transition to 
the evangelization of Galilee generally. 

First. Vers. 31 and 32. The term, He went doicn, refers to the situation of Caper- 
naum on the sea-shore, in opposition to that of Nazareth on the high land. We have 
to do here with a permanent abode ; comp, John 2 : 12 and Matt. 4 : 13 (eld&v 
KaruKijoev etc K.), as well as the term, His own city (Matt. 9 : 1). The name Capernaum 
or Capharnaum (see critical note, ver. 23) does not occur in the O. T. From this it 
would seem that it was not a very ancient place. The name may signify, town of 
Ndhum (alluding to the prophet of this name), or (with more probability) town of 
consolation. The name, according to Josephus, belonged properly to a fountain ;* in 
the only passage in which he mentions this town, he calls it Ke^apv6fxrj.\ Until 
lately, it was very generally admitted that the site of Capernaum was marked by the 
ruins of Tell- Hum toward the northern end of the lake of *Gennesareth, to the west of 
the embouchure of the Jordan. Since Robinson's time, however, several, and among 
the rest M. Renan, have inclined to look for it farther south, in the rich plain where 
stands at the present day the town of Khan-Minyeh, of which Josephus has left us 
such a fine description. Keim pronounces very decidedly in favor of this latter 
opinion, and supports it by reasons of great weight.^ Agriculture, fishing, and com- 
merce, favored by the road from Damascus to Ptolemais, which passed through or 
near Capernaum, had made it a flourishing city. It was therefore the most important 
town of the northern district of the lake country. It was the Jewish, as Tiberias 
was the heathen, capital of Galilee (a similar relation to that between Jerusalem and 
Csesarea). 

The 31st and 32d verses form the fifth resting-place or general summary in the 
narrative (see vers. 14, 15). The analytical form }jv didaoKuv indicates habit. ' In the 
parallel place in Mark, the imperf. edldaoicev puts the act of teaching in direct and 
special connection with the following fact. By the authority {Itovaia) which charac- 
terized the words of Jesus, Luke means, not the power employed in the healing of 



* «< 



Bell. Jud." iii. 10, 8 : " To the mildness of the climate is added the advan- 
tage of a copious spring, which the inhabitants call Capharnaum." 

f Jos. "Vita," §72. 

X Delitzch, in his little tractate, " Ein Tag in Capernaum," does not hesitate to 
recognize in the great field of ruins of Tell-Hum the remains of Capernaum. 



156 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

the demoniac (to express this he would rather have used SvvafiiS, force), but the com- 
manding character which distinguished His teaching. Jesus did not dissect texts, 
like the Rabbis ; He laid down truths which carried with them their own evidence. 
He spoke as a legislator, not as a lawyer (Matt. 7 . 28, 29). The following incident 
proves the right He had to teach in this way. If appears that it was with this 31st 
verse that Marcion commenced his Gospel, prefacing it with the fixing of the date, 
iii. 1 : "In the 15th year of the government of Tiberius, Jesus went down into the 
town of Galilee called Capernaum. ' '* The complement understood ot went down 
was evidently : from heaven. As to the visit to Nazareth, Marcion places it after the 
scene which follows ; this transposition was certainty dictated by ver. 23. 

Second. Vers. 33-37. f Should the possessed mentioned by the evangelists be re- 
garded simply as persons afflicted after the same manner as our lunatics, whose de- 
rangement was attributed by Jewish and heathen superstition to supernatural in- 
fluence ? Or did God really permit, at this extraordinary epoch in history, an ex- 
ceptional display of diabolical power ? Or, lastly, should certain morbid conditions 
now existing, which medical science attributes to purely natural causes, either 
physical or psychical, be put down, at the present day also, to the action of higher 
causes ? These are the three hypotheses which present themselves to the mind. 
Several of the demoniacs healed by Jesus certainly exhibit symptoms very like those 
which are observed at the present day in those who are simply afflicted ; for example, 
the epileptic child, Luke 9 : 37 et seq. , and parall. These strange conditions in every 
case, therefore, were based on a real disorder, either physical or physico-psychical. 
The evangelists are so far from being ignorant of this, that they constantly class the 
demoniacs under the category of the sick (vers. 40 and 41), never under that of the 
vicious. The possessed have nothing in common with the children of the devil 
(John 8). Nevertheless these afflicted persons are constantly made a class by them- 
selves. On what does this distinction rest ? On this leading fact, that those who are 
simply sick enjoy their oW;n personal consciousness, and are in possession of their 
own will ; while in the possessed these faculties are, as it were, confiscated to a 
foreign power, with which the sick person identifies himself (ver. 34, 8 : 30). How 
is this peculiar symptom to be explained ? Josephus, under Hellenic influence, 
thought that it should be attributed to the souls of wicked men who came after death 
seeking a domicile in the living. % In the eyes of the people the strange guest was a 
demon, a fallen angel. This latter opinion Jesus must have shared. Strictly speak- 
ing, His colloquies with the demoniacs might be explained by an accommodation to 
popular prejudice, and the sentiments of those who were thus afflicted ; but in His 
private conversations with His disciples, He must, whatever was true, have disclosed 
His real thoughts, and sought to enlighten them. But He does nothing of the kind ; 
on the contrary, He gives the apostles and disciples power to cast out devils (9 : 1), 
and to tread on all the power of the enemy (10 : 19). In Mark 9 : 29, He distinguishes 
a certain class of demons that can only be driven out by prayer (and fasting ?). In 
Luke 11 : 21) and parall. He explains the facility with which He casts out demons 
by the personal victory which He had achieved over Satan at the beginning. He 
therefore admitted the intervention of this being in these mysterious conditions. If 

* Tertullian, " Contra Marc," iv. 7. 

f Ver. 33. &. B. L. V. Z. omit zieyuv. Ver. 35. &. B. D. L. V. Z. several Mnn. read 
ano instead of e|. 

J "BeU.<tTud."vii. 6.3, 



COMMENTARY ON ST. TAKE. . 157 

this is so, is it not natural to admit fiat He who exercised over this, as over all other 
kinds of maladies, such absolute powir, best understood its nature, and that there- 
fore His views upon the point should determine ours ? 

Are there not times when God permits a superior evil power to invade humanity ? 
Just as God sent Jesus at a period in history when moral and social evil had reached 
its culminating point, did not He also permit an extraordinary manifestation of dia' 
bolical power to take place at the same time ? By this means Jesus could be pro- 
claimed externally and visibly as the conqueror of the enemy of men, as He who 
came to destroy the works of the devil in the moral sense of the word (1 John 3 : 8). 
All the miracles of healing have a similar design. They are signs by which Jesus is 
revealed as the author of spiritual deliverances corresponding to these physical cures. 
An objection is found in the silence of the fourth Gospel ; but John in no way pro- 
fessed to relate all he knew. He says himself, 20 30, 31, that there are besides many 
miracles, and different miracles (rroA/.a nal &/./.a), which he does not relate. 

As to the present state of things, it must not be compared with the times of Jesus. 
Not only might the latter have been of an exceptional character ; but the beneficent 
influence which the Gospel has exercised in restoring man to himself, and bringing 
his conscience under the power of the holy and true God, may have brought about a 
complete change in the spiritual world. Lastly, apart from all this, is there nothing 
mysterious, from a scientific point of view, in certain cases of mental derangement, 
particularly in those conditions in which the will is, as it were, confiscated to, and 
paralyzed by, an unknown power ? And after deduction has been made for all those 
forms of mental maladies which a discriminating analysis can explain by moral and 
physical relations, will not an impartial physician agree that there is a residuum of 
cases respecting which he must say : Won Ivquet? 

Possession is a caricature of inspiration. The latter, attaching itself to the moral 
essence of a man, confirms him forever in the possession of his true self ; the former, 
while prof oundly opposed to the nature of the subject, takes advantage of its state of 
morbid passivity, and leads to the forfeiture of personality. The one is the highest 
work of God ; the other of the devil. 

The question has been asked, How could a man in a state of mental derangement, 
and who would be regarded as unclean (ver. 33), be found in the synagogue ? Per- 
haps his maiad}' had not broken out before as it did at this moment — Luke says 
literally : a man who had a spirit {an afflatus) of an unclean devil. In this expression, 
which is only found in Eev. 16 : 14, the term spirit or afflatus denotes the influence 
of the unclean devil, of the being who is the author of it. The crisis which breaks 
out (ver. 34) results from the opposing action of those two powers which enter into 
conflict with each other — the influence of the evil spirit, and that of the person and 
word of Jesus. A holy power no sooner begins to act in the sphere in which this 
wretched creature lives, than the unclean power which has dominion over him feels 
its empire threatened. This idea is suggested by the contrast between the epithet 
unclean applied to the diabolical spirit (ver. 33), and the address : Thou art the Holy 
One of God (ver. 34). The exclamation ia, oh! (ver. 34) is properly the imperative of 
raw, let be! It is a cry like that of a criminal who, when suddenly apprehended by 
the police, calls out : Loose me ! This is jilso what is meant in this instance by the 
expression, in frequent use among the Jews with different applications : What is 
there, between us and thee? of which the meaning here is : What have we to contend 
about? What evil have we done thee ? The plural we. does not apply to the devil 



158 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

and to the possessed, since the latter still identifies himself altogether with the 
former. The devil speaks in the name of all the other spirits of his kind which have 
succeeded in obtaining possession of a human being. The perdition which he dreads 
is being sent into the abyss where such spirits await the judgment (8 : 31). This 
abyss is the emptiness of a creature that possesses no point of support outside itself — 
neither in God, as the faithful angels have, nor in the world of sense, as sinful men 
endowed with a body have. In order to remedy this inward destitution, they en- 
deavor to unite themselves to some human being,' so as to enter through this medium 
into contact with sensible realities. Whenever a loss of this position befalls them, 
they fall back into the abyss of their empty self-dependence (vide subjectivite). The 
term Holy One of God expresses the character in which this being recognized his 
deadly enemy. We cannot be surprised that such homage should be altogether re- 
pugnant to the feelings of Jesus. He did not acknowledge it as the utterance of an 
individual whose will is free, which is the only homage that can please Him ; and 
He sees what occasion may be taken from such facts to exhibit His work in a sus- 
picious light (11 : 15). He therefore puts an end to this scene immediately by these 
two peremptory words (ver. 35) : Silence ! and Gome out. By the words e£ avrov, of 
him, Jesus forcibly distinguishes between the two beings thus far mingled together. 
This divorce is the condition of the cure. A terrible convulsion marks the deliver- 
ance of the afflicted man. The tormentor does not let go his victim without subject- 
ing him to a final torture. The words, without having done him any hurt, reproduce 
in a striking manner the impression of eye-witnesses : they ran toward the unhappy 
man, expecting to find him dead ; and to their surprise, on lifting him up, they find 
him perfectly restored. 

We may imagine the feelings of the congregation when they beheld such a scene 
as this, in which the two powers that dispute the empire of mankind had in a sensi- 
ble manner just come into conflict. Vers. 36 and 37 describe this feeling. Several 
have applied the expression this tcord (What a word is this ! A. V.) to the command 
of Jesus which the devil had just obeyed. But a reference to ver. 32 obliges us to 
take the term word in its natural sense, the .preaching of Jesus in general. The 
authority with which He taught (ver. 32) found its guarantee in the authority backed 
hy poioer (dvva/jts), with which He forced the devils themselves to render obedience. 
The power which Jesus exercises by His simple word is opposed to the prescriptions 
and pretences of the exorcists ; His cures differ from theirs, just as His teaching did 
from that of the scribes. In both cases He speaks as a master. 

The account of this miracle is omitted by Matthew. It is found with some slight 
variations in Mark (1 : 23 et seq.). It is placed by him, as by Luke, at the beginning 
of this sojourn of Jesus at Capernaum, Instead of fityav, having thrown 7dm, Mark 
says, cnapai-av, having torn, violently convulsed 7dm. Instead of What word is this? 
Mark makes the multitude say : . What new doctrine is this ? — an expression which 
agrees with the* sense which we have given to loyos in Luke. The meaning of the 
epithet new in the mouth of the people might be rendered by the common exclama- 
tion : Here is something new ! According to Bleek, Mark borrowed his narrative 
from Luke. But how very paltry and insignificant these changes would seem ! Ac- 
cording to Holtzmann, the original source was the primitive Mark (A.), the narrative 
of which has been reproduced exactly by our Mark ; while Luke has modified it with 
a view to exalt the miracle, by changing, for example, 7mving torn into -having 
thrown, and by adding on his own authority the details, with a loud voice, and with- 
out having done 7dm any hurt. Holtzmann congratulates himself, after this, on 
having made Luke's dependence on the Proto-Mark quite evident. But the simple 



COMMENTARY OX ST. Ll'KJJ. 159 

tern* word* which in Luke (ver. 36) supplies the place of Mark's emphatic expression, 
this neio doctrine, contradicts this explanation. And if this miracle was in the 
primitive Mark, from which, according to Holtzmann, Matthew must also have 
drawn his narrative, how came the latter to omit an incident so striking ? Holtz- 
mann's answer is, that, this evangelist thought another example of a similar 
cure, that of the demoniac at Gadara, the more striking ; and to compensate for the 
omission of the healing at Capernaum, he has put down two demoniacs, instead of 
one, to Gadara . . . ! How can such a childish procedure be imputed to a grave 
historian ? 

Third. Vers. 38 and 39.* Peter, according to our narrative, seems to have lived 
at Capernaum. According to John 1 : 45, he was originally of Bethsaida. The two 
places were very near, and might have had a common synagogue ; or, while origi- 
nally belonging to the one, Peter might have taken up his abode at the other. The 
term nevOepa (not firjrpvia) proves that Peter was married', which agrees with 1 Cor. 
9:5. It is possible that from this time Jesus took up His abode in Peter's house, Matt. 
17 : 24 et seq. According to Mark 1 : 29, His train of disciples consisted, not only of 
Simon and Andrew, but also of James and John. This already existing association 
supposes a prior connection between Jesus and these young fishermen, which is ex- 
plained in John 1. Luke does not name the companions of Jesus. We only see by 
the words, site arose and ministered unto them (ver. 39), that He was not alone. The 
expression irvperds jueyas does not appear to be used here in the technical sense which 
it lias in ancient books of medicine, where it denotes a particular kind of fever. In 
Luke, Jesus bends down over the sick woman. This was a means of entering into 
spiritual communication with her ; comp. Peter's words to the. impotent man (Acts 
3:4): Look on me. In Matthew, He touches the sick woman with His hand. This 
action has the same design. lu Mark, He takes her by the hand to lift her up. How 
are these variations to be explained, if all three drew from the same source, or if one 
derived his account from the other ? Luke says, literally, He rebuked the fever ; as 
if He saw in the disease some principle hostile to man. This agrees with John 8 : 44, 
where the devil is called the murderer of man. It was doubtless at the time of the 
evening meal (ver. 40). The first use which the sick woman makes of her recovered 
strength was to serve up a repast for her guests. Holtzmann finds a proof in the 
plur. avTols, " she served them," that Luke's narrative depends on Mark ; for thus 
far Luke has only spoken of Jesus : He came down (ver. 31), He entered (ver. 38). 
But this proof is weak. In the description of the public scene, Luke would only 
present the principal person, Jesus : while in the account of the domestic scene he 
would naturally mention also the other persons, since they had all the same need of 
being waited upon. 

In Luke and Mark the position of this narrative is very nearly the same, with 
merely this difference, that in the latter it follows the calling of the four disciples, 
while in Luke it precedes it. In Matthew, on the contrary, it is placed very much 
•later— after the Sermon on the Mount. As to the details, Matthew is almost 
identical with Mark, Thus the two evangelists which agree as to the time (Luke and 
Mark) differ most as to the details, and the two which come nearest to each other in 
details (Matthew and Mark) differ considerably as to time. How can this singular 
relation be explained if they drew from common written sources, or if they copied 
rrom each other ? Luke here omits Andrew, whom Mark mentions. Why so, if he 
copied from the primitive Mark ? Had he any animosity against Andrew ? Holtz- 

* Ver. 38. The mss. are divided between airo and etc, 

V 



160 COMMENTARY #]S T ST. LUKE. 

mann replies : Because he does not speak of Andrew in what follows. As if J in 
Mark himself, he was any the more mentioned in the incidents that follow ! 

Fourth,. Vers. 40 and 41.* Here we have one of those periods when the miracu- 
lous power of Jesus was most abundantly displayed. We shall meet again with some 
of these culminating points in the course of His ministry. A similar rhythm is 
found in the career of the apostles. Peter at Jerusalem (Acts 5 : 15, 16). and Paul at 
Ephesus (19 : 11, 12), exercise their miraculous power to a degree in which they ap- 
pear to have exhibited it at no other time in their life ; it was at the same time the 
culminating point of their ministry of the word. 

The memory of this remarkable evening must have fixed itself indelibly in the 
early tradition ; for the account of this time has been preserved, in almost identical 
terms, in our three Syn. The sick came in crowds. The expression, when the sun 
was setting, shows that this time had been waited for. And that not " because it 
was the cool hour," as many have thought, but because it was the end of the Sab- 
bath, and carrying a sick person was regarded as work (John 5 : 10). The whole 
city, as Mark, in his simple, natural, and somewhat emphatic style, says, was gather- 
ed together at the door. According to our narrative, Jesus made use on this occasion 
of the laying on of hands. Luke cannot have invented this detail himself ; and the 
others would not have omitted it if it had belonged to their alleged common source 
of information. Therefore Luke had some special source in which this detail was 
found, and not this alone. This rite is a symbol of any kind of transmission, 
whether of a gift or an office (Moses and Joshua, Deut. 34 : 9), or of a blessing (the 
patriarchal blessings), or of a duty (the transfer to the Levites of the natural functions 
of the eldest sons in every f amity), or of guilt (the guilty Israelite laying his hands on 
the head of the victim), or of the sound, vital strength enjoyed by the person who 
imparts it (cures). It is not certainly that Jesus could not have worked a cure by 
His mere word, or even by a simple act of volition. But, in the first place, there is 
something profoundly human in this act of laying the hand on the head of any one 
whom one desires to benefit. It is a gesture of tenderness, a sign of beneficial com- 
munication such as the heart craves. Then this symbol might be morally necessary. 
Whenever Jesus avails Himself of any material means to work a cure, whether it be 
the sound of His voice, or clay made of His spittle, His aim is to establish in the form 
best adapted to the particular case, a personal tie between the sick person and Him- 
self ; for He desires not only to heal, but to effect a restoration to G-od, by creating 
in the consciousness of the sick a sense of union with Himself the organ of divine 
grace in the midst of mankind, This moral aim explains the variety of the means 
employed. Had they been curative means—of the nature of magnetic passes, for 
example— they could not have varied so much. But as they were addressed to the 
sick person's soul, Jesus chose them in such a way that His action was adapted to its 
character or position. In the case of a deaf mute, He put His lingers into his ears ; 
He anointed the eyes of a blind man with His spittle, etc. In this way their healing 
appeared as an emanation from His person, and attached them to Him by an indis- 
soluble tie. Their restored life was felt to be dependent on His. The repetition of 

* Ver. 40. B. D. Q. X. etzltiBel^ instead of entOeiS. B. D. It. Syr., eBepaTrevev in- 
stead of eBepaTvevaev. Ver. 41. The mss. are divided between Kpavyafrvra and 
KpafyvTa. The T. R, with 14 Mjj. almost all the Mnn. Syr., reads o XpicroS before 
ovtos tov Qeov, contrary to 2*. B. C. D. F. L. R. X. Z. ItP le »i ue , which omit it. 

t 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 161 

the act of laying on of hands in each case was with the same view. The sick person, 
being thus visibly put into a state of physical dependence, would necessarily in- 
fer his moral dependence. The Alex, readings e-triBeis, laying on, eOepdnEve, He 
healed, must be preferred. The aor. (in the T. R.) indicates the completed act, the 
imperf. its indefinite continuation : " Laying His hands on each of them, He healed, 
and kept on healing, as many as came for it." 

The demoniacs are mentioned in ver. 41 among the sick, but as forming a class 
by themselves. This agrees with what we have stated respecting their condition. 
There must have been some physieo-^sychical disorganization to afford access to the 
malign influence. The words 6 Xptc-ds are correctly omitted by the Alex. ; they have 
been taken from the second part of the verse. From the fact that the multitude 
translated the exclamation of the devils, Thou art the Son of God, into this, It is the 
Christ, we have no right to conclude that the two titles were identical. By the former, 
the devils acknowledged the divine character of this man, who made them feel so 
forcibly His sovereign power. The latter was the translation of this homage into 
ordinary speech by the Jewish multitude. Was it the design of the devil to com- 
promise Jesus by stirring up a dangerous excitement in Israel in His favor, or by 
making it believed that there was a bond of common interest between His cause and 
theirs ? It is more natural to regard this exclamation as an involuntary homage, an 
anticipation of that compulsory adoration which all creatures, even those which are 
under the earth, as St. Paul says (Phil. 2 : 10), shall one day render to Jesus. They 
are before the representative of Him before whom they tremble (Jas. 2 : 19). Jesus, 
who had rejected in the desert all complicity with their head, could not think of 
deriving advantage from this impure homage. 

Fifth. Vers. 42-44.* The more a servant of God exerts himself in outward 
activity, the more need there is that he should renew his inward strength by medita- 
tion. Jesus also was subject to this law. Every morning He had to obtain afresh 
whatever was needed for the day ; for He lived by the Father (John 6 : 57). He 
went out before day from Peter's house, where no doubt He was staying. Instead 
of, And when it was day, Mark says, WJiile it was still very dark (evwxov liav). In- 
stead of, the multitude sought Him, Mark says, Simon and they that were with him 
followed after Him . . . and said unto Him, All men seek Thee. Instead of, 
1 must preach, Mark makes Jesus say, Let us go, that I may preach . . . etc. 
These shades of difference are easily explained, if the substance of these narratives 
was furnished by oral tradition ; but they become childish if they are drawn from 
the same written source. Holtzmann thinks that Luke generalizes and obscures the 
narrative of the primitive Mark. The third evangelist would have labored very use- 
lessly to do that ! Bleek succeeds no better in explaining Mark by Luke, than Holtz- 
mann Luke by Mark. If Mark listened to the narrations of Peter, it is intelligible 
that he should have added to the traditional narrative the few striking features which 
are peculiar to him, and particularly that which refers to the part taken by Simon on 
that day. As we read Mark 1 : 36, 37 we fancy we hear Peter telling the story him- 
self, and saying : " And we found Him, and said to Him, All men seek Thee. " These 
special features, omitted in the general tradition, are wanting in Luke. The words 

* Ver. 43. I*. B. C. D. L. X. some Mnn., arczcrakriv instead of aneoTaliiai. &. B. 
L. some Mnn.,£7rt tovto instead of «s tovto. Ver. 44. 1*. B. D. Q., «5 rag- ovvayuyas 
instead of ev rats ovvayuyaic, &. B. C. L. Q. R, several Mnn., ttjs lovSaias, instead 
of Trie TaW.aiaS. 



162 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

of Jesus, ver. 48, might be explained by a tacit opposition between the ideas of preach- 
ing and healing. "If I stayed at Capernaum, I should soon have nothing else to 
do but work cures, while I am sent that I may preach- also." But in this case the 
verb evayyelioaoBai should commence the phrase. On the contrary, the emphasis is 
on the words, to other cities . . . Jesus opposes to the idea of a stationary min- 
istry at Capernaum that of itinerant preaching. The term evayye/loacQai, to tell 
neios, is- very appropriate to express this idea. The message ceases to be news when 
the preacher remains in the same place. But in this expression of Jesus there is, 
besides, a contrast between Capernaum, the lar^e city, to which Jesus in no way 
desires to confine His care, and the smaller towns of the vicinity, designated in Mark 
by the characteristic term Koimonoheii, which are equally intrusted to His love. It 
is difficult to decide between the two readings, aireoT&lriv, I have been sent in order 
to . . . and aiTecTa?i/u,ai,- my mission is to . . . The second perhaps agrees 
better with the context. A very similar various reading is found in the parallel 
passage, Mark 1 : 88 (e&jXQov or e^eAijTivBa). Mark's term appears to allude to the in- 
carnation ; Luke's only refers to the mission of Jesus. The readings els rds 
awayuyds and kv rals avvayuyalg, ver. 44, recur in Mark 1 : 39. The former appears 
less regular, which makes it more probable : Jesus carried the preaching into the 
synagogues. The absurd reading rrji 'lovdalag, which is found in the six principal 
Alex., should be a caution to blind partisans of this text. 

THE MIRACLES OP JESUS. 

We shall here add a few thoughts on the miracles of Jesus in general. Four 
methods are used to get rid of the miraculous element in the Gospel history : First. 
The explanation called natural," which upholds the credibility of the narrative, but 
explains the text in such a way that its contents offer nothing extraordinary. This 
attempt has failed ; it is an expedient repudiated at the present day, rationalistic 
criticism only having recourse to it in cases where other methods are manifestly in- 
effectual. Second. The mythical explanation, according to which the accounts of 
the miracles would be owing to reminiscences of the miraculous stories of the O. T. — 
the Messiah could not do less than the prophets — or would be either the product of 
spontaneous creations of the Christian consciousness, or the accidental result of cer- 
tain words or parables of Jesus that were misunderstood (the resurrection of Lazarus, 
e.g., the result of the passage Luke 16 : 31 ; the cursing of the barren fig-tree, a trans- 
lation into fact of the parable, Luke 13 : 6-9). But the simple, plain, historical char- 
acter of our Gospel narratives, so free from all poetical adornment and bombast, de- 
fends them against this suspicion. Besides, several accounts of miracles are accom- 
panied by words of Jesus, which in such a case would lose their meaning, but which, 
are nevertheless beyond doubt authentic. For example, the discourse, Matt. 12 : 26- 
et*seq., where Jesus refutes the charge, laid against Him by His adversaries, of cast- 
ing out devils by the prince of the devils, would have no sense but on the supposition, 
fully conceded by these adversaries, of the reality of His cures of the possessed. His 
address to the cities of Galilee, Luke 10 : 12-15, implies the notorious and undisputed 
reality of numerous miraculous facts in His ministry ; for we know of no exegesis 
which consents to give the term dwdfj-etS in this passage the purely moral meaning which 
M. Colani proposes.* Third. The relative hypothesis, according to which these facts 
must be ascribed to natural laws as yet unknown. This was the explanation of 
Schleiermacher ; in part also it was the explanation of M. Renan : " The miraculous 
is only the unexplained." It is in conflict with two insurmountable difficulties : 1. 

- See on this subject the fine chapter of Holtzmann, " Die Synopt. Evangelien," 
§ 30; "Die Synoptischen Wunderberichte ;" and my lecture on the " Miracles de 
Jesus," second edition, p. 11 et seq. 



COMMB^TAEY ON ST. LUKE. 163 

If certain cures may be explained after a fashion, we may be perfectly sure that no 
one will ever discover a natural law capable of producing a multiplication of loaves 
and of cooked fish, a resurrection of the dead, and above all, such an event as the 
resurrection of Jesus Himself. 2. We must, according to this explanation, attribute 
to Jesus miracles of scientific knowledge quite as inexplicable as the miracles of 
power which are now in question. Fourth. The psychological explanation. After 
having got rid of the miracles wrought on external nature (the multiplication of the 
loaves and the stilling of the storm) by one of the three methods indicated, Keim ad- 
mits a residuum of extraordinary and indisputable facts in the life of Jesus. These 
are the cures wrought upon the sick and the possessed. Before him, M. Renan had 
spoken of the influence exerted on suffering and nervous people by the contact of a 
person of finely organized nature (une personne exquise). Keim merely, in fact, 
amplifies this expression. The only real miracles in the history of Jesus — the cures 
— are to be ascribed, according to him, to moral influence (ethico-psychological, t. ii. 
p. 162). We reply : 1. That the miracles wrought on nature, which are set aside as 
mythical, are attested in exactly the same manner as the cures which are admitted. 
2. That Jesus wrought these cures with an absolute certainty of success (" Now, in 
order that ye may know, I say unto thee . . ." "1 will ; be thou clean." " Be 
it unto thee as thou wilt "), and that the effect produced was immediate. These two 
features are incompatible with the psyehological explanation. 3. That if Jesus had 
known that these cures did not proceed from an order of things above nature, it is in- 
conceivable that He would have offered them as God's testimony in His favor, and as 
signs of His Messianic dignity. Charlatanism, however slight, is incompatible with 
the moral character of Jesus. On the possessed, see pp. 156-7. 

Jewish legends themselves bear witness to the reality of Jesus' miracles. " The 
Son of Stada (a nickname applied to Jesus in the Talmud) brought charms from Egypt 
in an incision which he had made in his flesh." This is the accusation of. the 
Talmud against Him. Surely, if the Jews had been able to deny His miracles, it 
would have been a simpler thing to do than to explain them in this way. Lastly, 
when we compare the miracles of the Gospels with those attributed to Him in the 
apocryphal writings, we feel what a wide difference there is between tradition and 
legend. 

second cycle. — chap. 5:1; 6 : 11. 
From tlie Call of the First Disciples to the Choice of tlie Twelve. 

Up to this time Jesus has been preaching, accompanied by a few friends, but with- 
out forming about Him a circle of permanent disciples. As His work grows, He feels 
it necessary to give it a more definite form. The time has arrived when He deems it 
wise to attach to Himself, as regular disciples, those whom the Father has given Him. 
This new phase coincides with that in which His work begins to come into conflict 
with the established order of things. 

This cycle comprises six narratives : 1. The call of the first four disciples (5 : 11) ; 
2 and 3. Two cures of the leper and the paralytic (5 : 12-14 and 15-26) ; 4. The call of 
Levi, with the circumstances connected with it (5 : 27-39) ; 5 and 6. Two conflicts 
relating to the Sabbath (6 : 1-11). 

1. The Call of the Disciples: 5 : 1-11. — The companions of Jesus, in the preced- 
ing scene, have not yet been named by Luke (they besought Him, 4 : 38" ; she min- 
istered unto them (4 : 39). According to Mark (1 : 29), they were Peter, Andrew, 
James, and John. These are the very four young men whom we find in this nar- 
rative. They had lived up to this time in the bosom of their families, and continued 
their old occupations. But this state of things was no longer suitable to the part 
which Jesus designed for them.. They were to treasure up all His instructions, be 
the constant witnesses of His works, and receive from Him a daily moral education, 



164 COMMENTARY OTs ST. LUKE. 

In order to this it was indispensable that they should be continually with Him. In 
calling them to leave their earthly occupation, and assigning them in its place one 
that was wholly spiritual, Jesus founded, properly speaking, the Christian ministry. 
For this is precisely the line of demarcation between the simple Christian and the 
minister, that the former realizes the life of faith in any earthly calling ; while the 
latter, excused by his Master from any particular profession, can devote himself en- 
tirely to the spiritual work with whieh he is intrusted. Such is the new position to 
which Jesus raises these young fishermen. It is more than simple faith, but less 
than apostleship ; it is the ministry, the general foundation on which will be erected 
the apostolate. 

The call related here by Luke is certainly the same as that which is related, in a 
more abridged form, by Matthew (4 : 18-22) and Mark (1 : 16-20). For can any one 
suppose, with Riggenbach, that Jesus twice addressed the same persons in these 
terms, " I will make you fishers of men," and that they could have twice left all in 
order to follow Him ? If the miraculous draught of fishes is omitted in Matthew and 
Mark, it is because, as we have frequent proof in the former, in the traditional nar- 
ratives, the whole interest was centred in the word of Jesus, which was the soul of 
every incident. Mark has given completeness to these narratives wherever he could 
avail himself of Peter's accounts. But here this was not the case, because, as many 
facts go to prove, Peter avoided giving prominence to himself in his own narrations. 

Yers. 1-3.* The General Situation. — This description furnishes a perfect frame to 
the scene that follows. The words, kol avroS . . . He was also standing there, 
indicate the inconvenient position in which He was placed by the crowd collected at 
this spot. The details in ver. 2 are intended to explain the request which Jesus 
makes to the fishermen. The night fishing was at an end (ver. 5). And they had 
no intention of beginning another by daylight ; the season was not favorable. More- 
over, they had washed their nets (a-xETtkvvav is the true reading ; the imperf. in B. D. 
is a correction), and their boats were drawn up upon the strand (karuTa). If the 
fishermen had been ready to fish, Jesus would not have asked them to render a service 
which would have interfered with their work. It is true that Matthew and Mark 
represent them as actually engaged in casting their nets. But these two evangelists 
omit the miraculous draught altogether, and take us to the final moment when Jesus 
says to them : " I will make you fishers of men." Jesus makes a pulpit of the boat 
which his friends had just left, whence He casts the net of the word over the crowd 
which covers the shore. Then, desiring to attach henceforth these young believers 
to Himself with a view to His future work, He determines to give them an emblem 
they will never forget of the magnificent success that will attend the ministry for the 
love of which He invites them to forsake all ; and in order that it may be more deeply 
graven on their hearts, He takes this emblem from their daily calling. 

Yers. 4-lOa.f The Preparation. — In the imperative, launch out (ver. 4), Jesus 
speaks solely to Peter, as director of the embarkation ; the order, let down, is ad- 
dressed to all. Peter, the head of the present fishing, will one day be head also of 
the mission. ISTot having taken anything during the night, the most favorable time 

* Yer. 1. &. A. B. L. X., kcli aicoveiv instead of rov atcoueiv. Yer. 2. B. D., 
etlIwov, instead of sirXwav or aneizAwav, which is the reading of all the others. 

f Yer. 6. &. B. L. Siepijaaero, C. AieppijTo, instead of dupprjyvvTo (or dieprjyvvTo), 
which is the reading of T. R. and the rest. Yer. 8. &. omits nvpie. Yer, 9, B, D, 
X., cjv instead of n. 



COMMENTARY o:N~ ST. LUKE. 165 

for fishing, they had given up the idea of fishing in the day. Peter's reply, so full of 
docility, indicates faith already existing. " 1 should not think of letting down the 
net ; nevertheless at Thy word . . ." He calls Jesus kmoTdrric, properly Overseer, 
Master. This word frequently occurs in Luke ; it is more general than pa$$i or 
6idaaKokoS ; it refers to any kind of oversight. The miraculous draught may be only 
a miracle of knowledge ; Jesus had a supernatural knowledge of a large shoal of fish 
to be found in this place. There are numerous instances of a similar abundance of 
fish appearing in an unexpected way.* Jesus may, however, have wrought by His 
own will what is frequently produced by physical circumstances. The imperf., was 
freaking, ver. 6, indicates a beginning to break, or at least a danger of it. The ar- 
rival of their companions prevented this accident. The term uiroxot denotes merely 
participation in the same employment. In Matthew and Mark, John and James were 
mending their nets. Luke contains nothing opposed to this. Meyer thinks Peter's 
astonishment (ver. 8) incomprehensible after all the miracles he had already seen. 
But whenever divine power leaves the region of the abstract, and comes before our 
eyes in the sphere of actual facts, does it not appear new ? Thus, in Peter's case, the 
emotion produced by the draught of fishes effaces for the time every other impres- 
sion. "E?e26e ate kfiov. Go out [of the boat, and depart] from me. Peter here em- 
ploys the more religious expression Lord, which answers to his actual feeling. The 
word avrjp, a man, strongly individualizes the idea of sinner- If the reading y be 
preferred to u>v (Alex.), we must take the word aypa, catch, in the passive sense. 
The term koivuvoi, associates (ver. 10), implies more than /droxoi, companions (ver. 7) ; 
it denotes association in a common undertaking. 

Vers. 105, 11. f The Call. — In Matthew and Mark the call is addressed to the four 
disciples present ; in Luke, in express terms, to Peter only. It results, doubtless, 
from what follows that the call of the other disciples was implied (comp. launch out, 
ver. 4), or that Jesus extended it to them, perhaps by a gesture. But how can criti- 
cism, with this passage before them, which brings the person of Peter into such prom- 
inence, while the other two Syn. do not in any way, attribute to our evangelist an 
intention to underrate this apostle ? % 

The analytical form eay ^uypdv, thou shalt be catching, expresses the permanence 
of this mission ; and the words, from henceforth, its altogether new character. Just 
as the fisherman, by his superior intelligence, makes the fish fall into his snares, so 
the believer, restored to God and to himself, may seize hold of the natural man, and 
lift it up with himself to God. 

* Tristram, " The Natural History of the Bible," p. 285 : " The thickness of the 
shoals of fish in the lake of Gennesareth is almost incredible to any one who has not 
witnessed them. They often cover an area of more than an acre ; and when the fish 
move slowly forward in a mass, and are rising out of the water, they are packed so 
close together that it appears as if a heavy rain was beating down on the surface of 
the water." A similar phenomenon was observed some years ago, and even in the 
spring of this year, in several of our Swiss lakes. " At the end of February, in the 
lakes of Constance and Wallentsadt, the fish crowded together in such large numbers 
at certain places by the banks, that the water was darkened by them. At a single 
draught, 35 quintals of different kinds of fish were taken. " —{Bund, 6th March, 1872.) 

f Ver. 11. &. B. D. L., nav-a instead of a~av-a. 

X "Luke underrates Peter," says M. Burnouf, following M. de Bunsen, juu., 
Bevue des Deux-Mondes, 1st December, 1865. Is it not time to have done with this 
bitter and untruthful criticism, of which the " Anonymous Saxon" has given the 
most notorious example, and which belongs to a phase of science now passed away V 



166 COMMBNTABY (XKT ST. LUKE. 

This whole scene implies certain previous relations between Jesus and these young 
men (ver. 5), which agrees with Luke's narrative ; for in the latter this incident is 
placed after the healing of Peter's mother-in-law, when the newly called disciples 
were present. We must go farther back even than this ; for how could Jesus have 
entered into Peter's house on the Sabbath day (4 : 38), unless they had already been 
intimately acquainted ? John's narrative easily explains all : Jesus had made the ac- 
quaintance of Peter and his friends when they were with John the Baptist (John 1). 
As for Matthew and Mark, their narrative has just the fragmentary character that be- 
longs to the traditional narrative. The facts are simply put into juxtaposition. Be- 
yond this, each writer follows his own bent : Matthew is eager after the words of 
Christ, which in his view are the essential thing ; Mark dwells somewhat more on the 
circumstances ; Luke enriches the traditional narrative by the addition of an inrpor- 
tant detail — the miraculous fishing — obtained from private sources of information. 
His narrative is so simple, and at the same time so picturesque, that its accuracy is 
beyond suspicion. John does not mention this incident, because it was already suffi- 
ciently known through the tradition ; but, in accordance with his method, he places 
before us the first commencement of the connection which terminated in this result. 
Holtzmann thinks that Luke's narrative is made up partly from that of Mark and 
Matthew, and partly from the account of the miraculous fishing related in John 21. 
It would be well to explain how, if this were the case, the thrice repeated reply of 
Peter, Thou knowest that 1 love ■ Thee, could have been changed by Luke into the ex- 
clamation, Depart from me! Is it not much more simple to admit that, when Jesus 
desired to restore Peter to his apostleship, after the denial, He began by placing him 
in a similar situation to that in which he was when first called, in the presence of 
another miraculous draught of fishes ; and that it was by awakening in him the fresh 
impressions of earlier days that He restored to him his ministry ? Besides, in John 
21, the words, on -the other side of tJie ship, seem to allude to the mission to the 
heathen. 

The course of events therefore was this : Jesus, after having attached to Himself 
in Judaea these few disciples of John the Baptist, took them back with Him into 
Galilee ; and as He wished Himself to return to His own family for a little while 
(John 2 : 1-12 ; Matt. 4 : 13), He sent them back to theirs, where they resumed their 
former employments. In this way those early days passed away, spent in Caper- 
naum and the neighborhood, of which John speaks (ov iroM&s y/iEpas), and which 
Luke describes from 4 ; 14. But when the time came for Him to goto Jerusalem for 
the feast of the Passover (John 2 : 13 et seq.), where Jesus determined to perform the 
solemn act which was to inaugurate His Messianic ministry (John 2 : 13 et seq.), He 
thought that the hour had come to attach them to Him altogether ; so, separating 
Himself finally from His family circle and early calling, He required the same 
sacrifice from them. For this they were sufficiently prepared by all their previous 
experiences ; they made it therefore without hesitation, .and we find them from this 
time constantly with Him, both in the narrative of John (2 : 17, 4 : 2-8) and in the 
Synoptics. 

2. The Lepers : vers. 12-14.* In Mark XI < 40), as in Luke, the cure of the lepers 
took place during a preaching tour. Matthew connects this miracle with the Sermon 
on the Mount ; it is as He comes down from the hill that Jesus meets and heals the 
leper (8 : 1 et seq.). This latter detail is so precise that it is natural to give Matthew 
the preference here, rather than say, with Holtzmann, that Matthew wanted to fill up 
the return from the mountain to the city with it. 

Leprosy was in every point of view a most frightful malady. First. In its phy- 
sical aspects it was a whitish pustule, eating away the flesh, attacking member after 
member, and at last eating away the very bones ; it was attended with burning fever, 
sleeplessness, and nightmare, without scarcely the slightest hope of cure. Such 
were its physical characteristics ; it was a living death. Second. In the social point 
of view, in consequence of the excessively contagious nature of his malady, the leper 

* Ver. 13. The mss. are divided between et-uv and "heywv (Alex.). 




COMMENTARY OH ST. LUKE. 16T 

was separated from his family, and from intercourse with men, and had no other 
company than that of others as unhappy as himself. Lepers ordinarily lived in 
bands, at a certain distance from human habitations (2 Kings 7:3; Luke 17 : 12). 
Their food was deposited for them in convenient places. They went with then* head 
uncovered, and their chin wrapped up ; and on the approach of any persons whom 
they met, they had to announce themselves as lepers. Third. In the religious point 
of view, the leper was Levitically unclean, and consequently excommunicate. His 
malady was considered a direct chastisement from God. In the very rare case of a 
cure, he was only restored to the theocratic community on an official declaration of 
the priest, and after offering the sacrifice prescribed by the law (Lev. 13 and 14, and 
the tract Negaiin in the Talmud). 

The Greek expression is : And behold, a man! There is not a verb even. His 
approach was not seen ; it has all the effect of an apparition. This dramatic form 
reproduces the impression made on those who witnessed the scene ; in fact, it was 
only by a kind of surprise, and as it were by stealth, that a leper could have suc- 
ceeded in approaching so near. The construction of .the 12th verse (mi lyevero 
. . . ml . . . mi) is Hebraistic, and proves an Aramasan document. There 
is nothing like it in the other Syn. ; the eye-witness discovers himself in every 
feature of Luke's narrative. The diseased man was full of leprosy— that is to say, 
his countenance was lividly white, as is the case when the malady has reached an ad- 
vanced stage. The unhappy man looks for Jesus in the crowd, and having discovered 
Rim (I66v) he rushes toward Him ; the moment he recognizes Him, he is at His feet. 
'Luke says, falling on his face; Mark, kneeling dozen; Matthew, he worshipped. 
Would not these variatioDS in terms be puerile if this were a case of copying, or of a 
derivation from a common source ? The dialogue is identical in the three narratives ; 
it was expressed in the tradition in a fixed form, while the historical details were re- 
produced with greater freedom. All three evangelists say cleanse instead of heal, on 
account of the notion of uncleanness attached to this malady. In the words, if Thou 
wilt, Thou canst, there is at once deep anguish and great faith. Other sick persons 
had been cured — this the leper knew — hence his faith ; but he was probably 
the first man afflicted with his particular malady that succeeded in reaching 
Jesus and entreating His aid — hence his anxiety. The older rationalism used to 
explain this request in this way : " Thou canst, as Messiah, pronounce me clean." 
According to this explanation, the diseased person, already in the way of being cured 
naturally, simply asked Jesus to verify the cure and pronounce him clean, in c "..er 
that he might be spared a costly and troublesome journey to Jerusalem. But for the 
erm KaBapifyiv, to purify, comp. 7 : 22, Matt. 10 : 8, where the simply declarative sense 
is impossible ; and as to the context, Strauss has already shown that it comports 
just as little with this feeble meaning. After the words, be thou clean (pronounced 
pure), these, and he was cleansed (pronounced pure), would be nothing but absurd 
tautology. Mark, who takes pleasure in portraying the feelings of Jesus, expresses 
the deep compassion with which He was moved by this spectacle (airlayxvLaQeii). 
The three narratives concur in one detail, which must have deeply impressed those 
who saw it, and which, for this reason, was indelibly imprinted on the tradition : He 
put forth His hand, and touclied him. Leprosy was so contagious," that this cour- 

* It probably was regarded as contagious in popular apprehension, which would 
justify the remark in the text ; but the man who was so completely covered with the 



168 COMMENTARY Otf ST. LUKE. 

ageous act excited the liveliest emotion in the crowd. Throughout the whole course 
of His life, Jesus confronted the touch of our impure nature in a similar manner. 
His answer is identical in the three narratives ; but the result is variously expressed. 
Matthew says : Ms leprosy was cleansed, regarding it from a ceremonial point of view. 
Luke simply says : the leprosy departed from him, looking at it from a human point 
of view. Mark combines the two forms. This is one of the passages on which they 
rely who make Mark a compiler from the other two ; but if Mark was anxious to ad- 
here so slavishly to the minutest expressions of his predecessors, to the point even of re- 
producing them without any object, how are we to explain the serious and important 
modifications which in so many other cases he introduced into their narratives, and 
the considerable omissions which he is continually making of the substance of what 
they relate ? The fact is, that there were two sides to this cure, as to the malady it- 
self, the physical and the religious ; and Mark combines them, while the other two 
appear to take one or the other. 

The prohibition which Jesus lays on the leper appears in Luke 5 : 14 in the form 
of indirect discourse ; but in relating the injunction which follows it, Luke passes to 
the direct form. This form is peculiar to his narrative. Luke and Matthew omit the 
threat with which Jesus, according to Mark, accompanied this injunction (ejufipt- 
firjcdfievos). What was the intention of Jesus ? The cure having been public, He 
could not prevent the report of it from being spread abroad. This is true ; but He 
wanted to do all in His power to diminish its fame, and not give a useless impetus to 
the popular excitement produced by the report of His miracles. Comp. Luke 8 : 56 ; 
Matt. 9 : 30, 12 : 16 ; Mark 1 : 34, 3 : 12, 5 : 43, 7 : 36, 8 : 26. All these passages forbid 
our seeking a particular cause for the prohibition He lays on the leper ; such as a 
fear that the priests, having had notice of his cure before his reaching them, would 
refuse to acknowledge it ; or that they would pronounce Jesus unclean for having 
touched him ; or that the sick man would lose the serious impressions which he had 
received ; or that he would allow himself to be deterred from the duty of offering the 
sacrifice. Jesus said, " Show thyself," because the person is here the convincing 
proof. In Luke we read, according to Moses ... in Matthew, the gift which 
Moses ... in Mark, the things which Moses . . . Most puerile changes, if 
they were designed ! What is the testimony contained in this sacrifice, and to whom 
is it addressed ? According to Bleek, the word them would refer to the people, who 
are to be apprised that every one may henceforth renew his former relations with the 
lep^" But is not the term testimony too weighty for this meaning? Gerlach refers 
the pronoun them to the priests : in order that thou, by thy cure, mayest be a wit- 
ness to them of my almightiness ; but according to the text, the testimony consists 
not in the cure being verified, but in the sacrifice being offered. The word them does 
indeed refer to the priests, who are all represented by the one who will verify the 
cure ; but the testimony respects Jesus Himself, and His sentiments in regard to the 
law. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus repels the charge already preferred against 
Him of despising the law (Matt. 5 : 17 : " Think not that I am come to destroy the 
law"). It is to His respect, therefore, for the Mosaic legislation, that this offering 
will testify to the priests. During His earthly career Jesus never dispensed His 
people from the obligation to obey the prescriptions of the law ; and it is an error to 

disease that it could find no further range was clean, according to Lev. 13 : 13. See 
Smith's Diet, of Bible, sub voce.— Tr. 



COMMENTARY ON' ST. LURK. 169 

regard Him as having, under certain circumstances, set aside the law of the Sabbath 
as far as He Himself was concerned. He only transgressed the arbitrary enactments 
with which Pharisaism had surrounded it. We see by these remarkable words that 
Jesus had already become an object of suspicion and serious charges at Jerusalem. 
This state of things is explained by the narrative of the fourth Gospel, where, from 
the second chapter, we see Jesus exposed to the animosity of the dominant party, and 
accords to 4 : 1. He is even obliged to leave Judaea in order that their unfavorable 
impressions may not be aggravated before the time. In chap. 5, which describes a 
fresh visit to Jerusalem (for the feast of Purim), the conflict thus prepared breaks 
forth with violence, and Jesus is obliged to testify solemnly His respect for this 
Moses, who will be the Jews' accuser, and nut His (5 : 45-47). This is just the state 
of things with which the passage we *are explaining agrees, as well as all the facts 
which are the sequel of it. Notwithstanding apparent discrepancies between the 
Syn. and John, a substantial similarity prevails between them, which proves that both 
forms of narrative rest on a basis of historic reality. 

The leper, according to Mark, did not obey the injunction of Jesus ; and this dis- 
obedience served to increase that concourse of sick persons which Jesus endeavored 
to lessen. 

This cure is a difficulty for Keim. A purely moral influence may calm a fever 
(4 : 39), or restore a frenzied man to his senses (4 : 31 et seq.) ; but it cannot purif} r 
vitiated blood, and cleanse a body covered with pustules. Keim here resorts to what 
is substantially the explanation of Paulus, The leper already cured simply desired to 
be pronounced clean by authorized lips, that he might not have to go to Jerusalem. It 
must be acknowledged, on this view of the matter, that the three narratives (Matthew 
as well as Luke and Mark, whatever Keim may say about it) are completely falsified 
by the legend. Then how came it to enter into the mind of this man to substitute 
Jesus for a priest? How could Jesus have accepted such an office? Having ac- 
cepted it, why should He have sent the afflicted man to Jerusalem ? Further, for 
what reason did He impose silence upon him, and en force it with threats ? And what 
could the man have had to publish abroad, of sufficient importance to attract the 
crowd of people described Mark 1 : 45 ? 

Holtzmann (p= 432) concludes, from the words k$e3alev and stje/Suv, literally, He 
cast him out, and having gone forth (Mark 1 ; 43, 45), that according to Mark this cure 
took place in a house, which agrees very well with the leper being prohibited from 
making it known ; and that consequently the other two Syn. are in error in making- 
it take place in public — Luke in a city, Matthew on the road from the mountain to 
Capernaum (8:1). He draws great exegetical inferences from this. But when it is 
said in Mark (1 : 12) that the Spirit drove out (eKpaMiei) Jesus into the wilderness, does 
this mean out of a house ? And as to the verb e$£pxeo6at, is it not frequently used in 
a broad sense : to go out of the midst of that in which one happens to be (here : the 
circle formed around Jesus) ? Comp. Mark 6 : 34 (Matt. 14 : 14), 6 : 12 ; John 1 : 44, 
etc. A leper would hardly have been able to make his way into a house. His taking 
them by surprise in the way he did could scarcely have happened except in the open 
country ; and, as we have seen, the prohibition of Jesus can easily be explained, tak- 
ing this view of the incident. The critical consequences of Holtzmann, therefore, 
have no substantial basis. 

3. TJie Paralytic : vers. 15-26. — First. A general description of the state of the 
work, vers. 15, 16 ; Second. The cure of the paralytic, vers. 17-26. 

First. Vers. 15 and 16.* While seeking to calm the excitement produced by His 
miracles, Jesus endeavored also to preserve His energies from any spiritual deteriora- 

* &. B. C. D. L. some Mnn. It. omit vn' avrov. 



170 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

lion by devoting part of His time to meditation and prayer. As Son of man, He had, 
in common with us all, to draw from God the strength He needed for His hours of 
activity. Such touches as these in the narrative certainly do not look like an apotheosis 
of Jesus, and they constitute a striking difference between the evangelical portrait 
and the legendary caricature. This thoroughly original detail suffices also to prove 
the independence of Luke's sources of information. After this general description 
(the seventh), the narrative is resumed with a detached and special incident, given as 
an example of the state of things described. 

Second. Vers. 17-19.* The Arrival — The completely Aramaean form of this pre- 
face (the mi before avrog, the form ml Jjoav . . , 61 rjoav, and especially the ex- 
pression t)v els to IdaOat) proves that Luke's account is not borrowed from either of 
the two other Synoptics. This was one of those solemn hours of which we have 
another instance in the evening at Capernaum (4 : 41, 42). The presence of the Phari- 
sees and scribes from Jerusalem is easily explained, if the conflict related John 5 had 
already taken place. The scribes did not constitute a theological or political party, 
like the Pharisees and Sadducees. They were the professional lawyers. They were 
designedly associated with the Pharisees sent to Galilee to watch Jesus (ver. 21). 
The narrative in the first Gospel is extremely concise. Matthew does not tell the 
story ; .he is intent upon his object, the word of Jesus. Mark gives the same details 
as Luke, but without the two narratives presenting one single term in common. 
And yet they worked on the same document, or one on the text of the other ! The 
roof of the house could be reached by a flight of steps outside built against the wall, 
or by a ladder, or even from the next house, for tjie houses frequently communicated 
with each other by the terraces. Does Luke's expression, did rtiv Kepdjuuv, signify 
simply by the roof— -that is to say, by the stairs which conducted from the terrace to 
the lower stories, or down over the balustrade which surrounded the terrace ; or is 
it just equivalent to Mark's description : ' 4 they uncovered the ceiling of the place 
where He was, and having made an opening, let down the pallet"? This term, 
through the tiles, would be strange, if it was not to express an idea similar to that of 
Mark. Strauss objects that such an operation as that of raising the tiles could not 
have been effected without danger to those who were below ; and he concludes from 
this that the narrative is only a legend. But in any case, a legend would have been 
invented in conformity with the mode of construction then adopted and known to 
everybody. Jesus was probably seated in a hall immediately beneath the terrace, f 

Vers. 20 and 214 The Offence.— The expression their faith, in Luke, applies 
evidently to the perseverance of the sick man and his bearers, notwithstanding the 
obstacles they encountered f it is the same in Mark. In Matthew, who has not men- 

* Ver. 17. &. B. L. Z., avrov instead of avrovS. Ver. 19. All the M/jj. omit Sea 
before Ttoias. 

f Delitszch represents the fact in this way (" Ein Tag in Capernaum," pp. 40-46) : 
Two bearers ascend the roof by a ladder, and by means of cords they draw up by the 
same way the sick man after them, assisted by the other two bearers. In the middle 
of the terrace was a square plaee open in summer to give light and air to the house, 
but closed with tiles during the rainy season. Having opened this passage, the 
bearers let down the sick man into the large inner court immediately beloW, where 
Jesus was teaching near the cistern, fixed as usual in this court. The trap-stairs 
which lead down from the terrace into the house would have been too narrow for 
their use, and would not have taken them into the court, but into the apartments 
which overlooked it from all sides. 



COMMENTARY OS ST. LUKE. i;i 

tioned these obstacles, but who nevertheless employs the same terms, and seeing their 
faith, this expression can only refer to the simple fact of the paralytic's coming. The 
identical form of expression indicates a common source ; but at the same time, the 
different sense put upon the common words by their entirely different reference to 
what precedes proves that this source was not written. The oral tradition had 
evidently so stereotyped this form of expression that it is found in the narrative of 
Matthew, though separated from the circumstances to which it is applied in the two 
others. Jesus could not repel such an act of faith. Seeing the persevering con- 
fidence of the sick man, recognizing in him one of those whom His Father draws to 
Him (John 6 : 44), He receives him with open arms, by telling him that he is for- 
given. The three salutations differ in our Syn. : Man (Luke) ; My son (Mark) s 
Take courage, my Son (Matthew). Which of the evangelists was it that changed in this 
arbitrary and aimless manner the words of Jesus as recorded in his predecessor ? * 
'kfyeovrai is an Attic form, either for the present atplevrac, or rather for the perf. 
afelvrai. It is not impossible that, by speaking in this way, Jesus intended to throw 
down the gauntlet to His inquisitors. They took it up. The scribes are put before 
the Pharisees ; they were the experts. A blasphemy ! How welcome to them ! 
Nothing could have sounded more agreeably in their ears. We will not say, in re- 
gard to this accusation, with many orthodox interpreters, that, as God, Jesus had a 
right to pardon ; for this would be to go directly contrary to the employment of the 
title Son of man, in virtue of which Jesus attributes to Himself, in ver. 24, this power. 
But may not God delegate His gracious authority to a man w x ho deserves His con- 
fidence, and who becomes, for the great work of salvation, His ambassador on earth ? 
This is the position which Jesus takes. The only question is, whether this pretension 
is well founded,; and it is the demonstration of this moral fact, already contained in 
His previous miracles, that He proceeds to give in a striking form to His adversaries. 
Vers. 22-24. f The Miracle. — The miraculous work which is to follow is for a 
moment deferred. Jesus, without having heard the words of those about Him, under- 
stands their murmurs. His mind is, as it were, the mirror of their thoughts. The 
form of His reply is so striking that the tradition has preserved it to the very letter ; 
hence it is found in identical terms in .all three narratives. The proposition, that ye 
may know, depends on the following command : I say to thee . . . The principal 
and subordinate clauses having been separated by a moment of solemn silence, the 
three accounts fill up this interval with the parenthesis : He saith to the paralytic. 
This original and identical form must necessarily proceed from a common source, 
oral or written. It is no easier, certainly, to pardon than to heal ; but it is much 
easier to convict a man of imposture who falsely claims the power to heal, than him 
who falsely arrogates authority to pardon. There is a slight irony in the way in 
which Jesus gives expression to this thought. " You think these are empty words 
that I utter when I say, Thy sins are forgiven thee. See, then, whether the com- 
mand which I am about to give is an empty word." The miracle thus announced 
acquires the value of an imposing demonstration. It will be seen whether Jesus is 
not really what He claims to be, the Ambassador of God on earth to forgive sins. 
Earth, where the pardon is granted, is opposed to heaven, where He dwells from 
whom it proceeds. 

* Our author means by this and many similar expressions, to disprove the idea of 
the Gospels being copied from one another. — J. H. 

f The mss. vary between fcapahelvuevQ and TrapaAvTiKu. 



172 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. » 

It is generally acknowledged at the present day, that the title Son of man, by 
which Jesus preferred to designate Himself, is not simply an allusion to the sym- 
bolical name in Dan. 7, but that it sprang spontaneously from the depths of Jesus' 
own consciousness. Just as, in His title of Son of God, Jesus included whatever He 
was conscious of being for God, so in that of Son of man He comprehended all He 
felt He was for men. The term Son of man is generic, and denotes each representa- 
tive of the human race (Ps. 8:5; Ezek. 37 : 3, 9, 11). With the art. (tJieSon of man), 
this expression contains the notion of a superiority in the equality. It designates 
Jesus not simply as man, but as the normal man, the perfect representative of the 
race. If this title alludes to any passage of the O. T. , it must be to the ancient 
prophecy, " The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head " (Gen. 3 : 15).* 
There is a tone of triumph in this expression, ver. 25 : He took up that whereon he lay. 
The astonishment of the people, ver. 26, is expressed differently in the three narra- 
tives : We never saw it on this fashion (Mark) ; They glorified Ood, which had given 
such power unto men (Matthew). This remarkable expression, to men, is doubtless 
connected with Son of man. Whatever is given to the normal man, is in Him given 
to all. Matthew did not certainly add this expression on his own authority, any 
more than the others arbitrarily omitted it. Their sources were different. 

JlapdSo^a, strange things, in Luke, is found in Josephus' account of Jesus. By 
the term to-day the multitude allude not only to the miracle — they had seen others as 
astounding on previous days — but more particularly to the divine prerogative of par- 
don, so magnificently demonstrated by this miracle with which Jesus had just con- 
nected it. The different expressions by which the crowd give utterance to their sur- 
prise in the three Syn. might really have been on the lips of different witnesses of 
this scene. 

Keim, applying here the method indicated, pp. 162-3, thinks that the paralysis 
was overcome by the moral excitement which the sick man underwent. Examples are 
given of impotent persons whose power of movement has been restored by a mighty 
internal shock. Therefore it is just possible that the physical fact might be explained 
in this way. But the moral fact, the absolute assurance of Jesus, the challenge im- 
plied in this address, " In order that ye may know, . . . v arise and walk !" — a 
speech the authenticity of which is so completely guaranteed by the three narratives 
and by its evident originality — how is this to be explained from Keim's standpoint ? 
Why, Jesus, in announcing so positively a success so problematical, would have laid 
Himself open to be palpably contradicted by the fact ! At the commencement of His 
ministry He would have based His title to be the Son of man, His authority to for- 
give sins, His mission as the Saviour, His entire spiritual work, on the needle's point 
of this hazardous experiment ! If this were the case, instead of a divine demonstra- 
tion (and this is the meaning which Jesus attaches to the miracle), there would be 
nothing more in the fact than a fortunate coincidence. 

4. The Call of Levi : vers. 27-39. —This section relates : First. The call of Levi ; 
Second. The feast which followed, with the discourse connected with it ; Third. A 
double lesson arising out of a question about fasting. 

* M. Gess, in his fine work, " Christ! Zeugniss von seiner Person und seinem 
Werk," 1870, understands by the Son of man, He who represents the divine majesty 
in a human form. The idea in itself is true ; the normal man is called to share in the 
divine estate, and to become the supreme manifestation of God. But the notion of 
divine majesty does not belong to the term Son of man. It is contained in the term 
Son of Ood. The two titles are in antithetical connection, and for this reason they 
complete each other. 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 173 

First. Vers. 27 and 28.* The Call. — This fact occupies an important place in the 
development of the work of Jesus, not only as the complement of the call of the first 
disciples (ver. 1 et seq.), but especially as a continuation of the conflict already enter- 
ed into with the old order of things. 

The publicans of the Gospels are ordinarily regarded as Jewish sub-collectors in the 
service of Rome knights, to whom the tolls of Palestine had been let out at Rome. 
Wieseler, in his recent work,f corrects this view. He proves, by an edict of Caesar, 
quoted in Josephus (" Antiq." xiv. 10. 5), that the tolls in Judaea were remitted direct 
to the Jewish or heathen collectors, without passing through the hands of the Roman 
financiers. The publicans, especially such as, like Matthew, were of Jewish origin, 
were hated and despised by their fellow-countrymen more even than the heathen 
themselves. They were excommunicated, and deprived of the right of tendering an 
oath before the Jewish authorities. Their conduct, which was too often marked by 
extortion and fraud, generally justified the opprobrium which public opinion cast 
upon them. Capernaum was on the road leading from Damascus to the Mediter- 
ranean, which terminated at Ptolemais (St. Jean d'Acre). .It was the commercial 
highway from the interior of Asia. In this city, therefore, there must have been a 
tax-office of considerable importance. This office was probably situated outside the 
city, and near the sea. . This explains the expression, He went out (Luke) ; He went 
forth in order to go to the sea-side (Mark). In the three Syn. this call immediately 
follows the healing of the paralytic (Matt. 9:9; Mark 2 : 13 et seq.). 

Jesus must have had some very important reason for calling a man from the class 
of the publicans to join the circle of His disciples ; for by this step He set Himself 
at open variance with the theocratic notions of decorum. Was it His deliberate in- 
tention to throw down the gauntlet to the numerous Pharisees who had come from a 
distance to watch Him, and to show them how completely He set Himself above their 
judgment ? Or was it simply convenient to have among His disciples a man accus- 
tomed to the use of the pen ? This is quite possible ; but there is something so abrupt, 
so spontaneous, and so strange in this call that it is impossible to doubt that Jesus 
spoke to him in obedience to a direct impulse from on high. The higher nature of 
the call appears also in the decision and promptness with which it was accepted. 
Between Jesus and this man there must have been, as it were, a flash of divine sym- 
pathy. The relation between Jesus and His first apostles was formed in this way 
(John 1). The name Levi not occurring in any of the lists of apostles — it is impos- 
sible to identify it with Lebbaeus, which has a different meaning and etymology — it 
might be thought that this Levi never belonged to the number of the Twelve. But in 
this case why should his call be so particularly related ? Then the expression, having 
left all, he followed Him (ver. 28), forbids our thinking that Levi ever resumed his 
profession as a toll-collector, and puts him in the same rank as the four older dis- 
ciples (ver. 11). We must therefore look for him among the apostles. In the cata- 
logue of the first Gospel (10 : 3), the Apostle Matthew is called the publican ; and in 
the same Gospel (9 : 9) the call of Matthew the publican is related, with details 
identical with those of our narrative. Must we admit two different but similar in- 
cidents ? This was the supposition of the Gnostic Heracleon and of Clement of 
Alexandria. Sieffert, Ewald, and Keim prefer to admit that our first Gospel applies 

* Ver. 28. Th eMss. vary between tcaTalnrov and KaraAenruv, as well as between 
aitavra and Travra, rjKOAovBet and 7]koAov0t]oev. 

\ " Beitrage zur richtigen Wiirdigung der Evangelien," \). 78. 



174 COMMEKTxVRY OK ST. LUKE. 

by mistake to the apostle and older publican Matthew, the calling of another less 
known publican, who should be called Levi (Mark and Luke). This opinion naturally 
implies that the first Gospel is unauthentic. But is it not much simpler to suppose 
that the former name of this man was Levi, and that Jesus, perceiving the direct 
hand of God in this event, gave him the surname of Matthew, gift of God, just as 
He gave Simon, at His first meeting with him, the surname of Peter ? * This name, 
which Matthew habitually bore in the Church, was naturally that under which he 
figured afterward in the catalogues of the apostles. f Were Luke and Mark unaware 
that the apostle so named was the publican whom they had designated by the name of 
Levi ? Or have they neglected to mention this identity in their lists of the apostles, 
because they have given these just as they found them in their documents ? We do 
not know. We are continually struck by seeing how the evangelical tradition has 
left in the shade the secondary personages of this great drama, in order to bestow 
exclusive attention on the principal actor. 'EBedoaro does not signify merely He saw, 
but He fixed His eyes upon him. This was the moment when something peculiar 
and inexplicable took place between Jesus and the publican. The expression 
KaQij/LLEVov eirl rd TeAunov cannot signify seated in the office ; stccoy £vtu> teXu vlu> would 
be necessarj'. As the accusative after eiri, the word toll might mean, seated at his 
work of toll-collecting ; but this sense of tsMvlov is unexampled. Might not the 
prep. km have the sense here in which it is sometimes employed in the classics — in 
Herodotus, for example, when he says of Aristides that he kept em to cvvidpiov in 
front of the place where the chiefs were assembled (8 : 79) ? Levi must have been 
seated in front of his office, observing what was passing. How, indeed, if he had 
been seated in the office, could his glance have met that of Jesus ? Without even 
re-entering, he follows Him, forsaking all. 

Second. Vers. 29-324 The Feast. —According to Luke, the repast was spread in 
the house of Levi ; the new disciple seeks to bring his old friends and Jesus together. 
It is his first missionary effort. Meyer sees a contradiction to Matthew here. Mat- 
thew says, " as Jesus sat at meat in the house" — an expression which, in his opinion, 
can only mean the dwelling of Jesus. He decides in favor of Matthew's narrative. 
But (1) how came the crowd of publicans and people of ill-fame at meat all at once 
in the house of Jesus? (2) Where is there ever any mention of the house of Jesus t 
(3) The repetition of Jesus' name at the end of the verse (ver. 10 in Matthew) ex- 
cludes the idea that the complement understood of the house is Jesus. As to Mark, 
the pron. avrov, his house, refers to Levi ; this is proved (1) by the opposition of avrov 
to the preceding avrdv, and (2) by the repetition of the name 'Iijoov in the following 
phrase. § The expression in the house, in Matthew, denotes therefore the house, 
wherever it was, in which the meal took place, in opposition to the outside, where 
the call, with the preaching that followed it, occurred. As usual, Matthew passes 

* Comp. the MarQalov Tieyo/uevov, Matt. 9 : 9, with Sifiov 6 leyo/xevos Ilerpof, 10 : 2. 
—John 1 : 43. 

f In the opinion of Gesenius, the name Matthias is a contraction of the Hebrew 
Mattathias, gift of God, but the opinion is not universally accepted. The conclusion, 
however, of our author is generally received. — J. H. 

X Part of the mss. put oi $apioaioi before oi ypajufiareiS avruv ; T. R., with the 
others, oi ypa/iu. avruv before ot Qapuj. Avrov is omitted by &. D. F. X. some Mnn. 

J t aliq . T R omitg TG)V ^ wlth g y jj on]y 

§ I am happy to find myself in accord here with Klostermann in his fine and con- 
scientious study of the second Gospel. (" Das Marcus-Evangelium, " pp. 43, 44.) 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 175 

rapidly over the external circumstances of the narrative ; it is the word of Jesus in 
which he is interested. The repast, doubtless, took place on the ground-floor, and 
the apartment or gallery in which the table was spread could easily be reached from 
the street. While Jesus was surrounded by His new friends, His adversaries at- 
tacked His disciples. The T. R. places their scribes before tlie Pharisees. In this 
case they would be the scribes of the place, or those of the nation. Neither mean- 
ing is very natural ; the other reading, therefore, must be preferred : the Pharisees 
and their scribes, the defenders of strict observance, and the learned men sent with 
them from Jerusalem as experts (vers. 17-21). The Sinait. and some others have 
omitted avrtiv, doubtless on account of the difficulty and apparent uselessness of this 
pronoun. 

Eating together is, in the East, as with us, the sign of very close intimac3% Jesus, 
therefore, went beyond all the limits of Jewish decorum in accepting the hospitality 
of Matthew's house, and in such company. His justification is partly serious and 
partly ironical. He seems to concede to the Pharisees that they are perfectly well, 
and concludes from this that for them He, the physician, is useless ; so far the 
irony. On the other hand, it is certain that, speakiDg ritually, the Pharisees were 
right according to the Levitical law, and that being so, they would enjoy the means 
of grace offered by the old covenant, of which those who have broken with the 
theocratic forms are deprived. In this sense the latter are really in a more serious 
condition than the Pharisees, and more urgently need that some one should interest 
himself in their salvation ; this is the serious side of the answer, This word is like 
a two-edged sword : first of all, it justifies Jesus from His adversaries' point of view, 
and by an argument ad hominem; but, at the same time, it is calculated to excite 
serious doubts in their minds as to whether this point of view be altogether just, and 
to give them a glimpse of auother, according to which the difference that separates 
them from the publicans has not all the worth which they attributed to it (see on 
15 : 1-7). The words to repentance are wauting ia Matthew and Mark, according to 
the best authorities ; the words understood in this case are : to the kingdom of God> 
to salvation. In Luke, where these w T ords are authentic, they continue the irony 
which forms the substance of this answer : come to call to repentance just persons ! 
It is for the Pharisees to ask themselves, after this, whether, because they meet the 
requirements of the temple, they satisfy the demands of God. The discussion here 
takes a new turn ; it assumes the character of a conversation on the use of fasting in 
the old and new order of things. 

Third. Vers. 33-39. Instruction concerning Fasting. 

Vers. 33-35.* In Luke they are the same parties, particularly the scribes, who 
continue the conversation, and who allege, in favor of the regular practice of 
fasting, the example of the disciples of John and of the Pharisees. The scribes ex- 
press themselves in this manner, because they themselves, as scribes, belong to no 
party whatever. In Matthew it is the disciples of John who appear all at once in the 
■ midst of this scene, and interrogate Jesus in their own name and in that of the 
Pharisees. In Mark it is the disciples of John and of the Pharisees united who put 

the question. This difference might easily find its way into the oral tradition, but it 

■ 
* Ver. 33. & a (?) B. L. X. omit duari. Ver. 34. &* D. ItP 1eri i ue , uy dvvavrac oi viol 
. vyarevaat (or vyareveLv) instead of py dvvaoBe rovS viovS . . . tzoujooi 
vyarevaai (or vyareveLv). Ver. 35. &. C. F. L. M. some Mnn. Syr. ItP ,er, <u»e > omit i«n 
before orav, The same (with the exception of C. L.) and A. place it before -ore. 



176 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

is inexplicable on any of the hypotheses which deduce the three texts from one and 
the same written source, or one of them from another. Mark says literally : the 
disciples of John and the Pharisees were fasting ; and we may understand that day. 
Devout persons in Israel fasted, in fact, twice a week (Luke 18 : 12), on Mondays and 
Fridays, the days on which it was said that Moses went up Sinai (see Meyer on Matt. 
6 : 16) ; this particular day may have been one or other of these two days. But we 
may also explain it : fasted habitually. They were fasting persons, addicted to relig- 
ious observances in which fasting held an important place. It is not easy to decide 
between these two senses : with the first, there seems less reason for the question ; 
with the second, it conveys a much more serious charge against Jesus, since it refers 
to His habitual conduct ; comp. 7 : 34, "Ye say, He is a glutton and a winebibber 
(an eater and a drinker). " The word diart, omitted by the Alex., appears to have 
been taken from Matthew and Mark. 

Whether the disciples of John were present or not, it is to their mode of religious 
reformation that our Lord's answer more especially applies. As they do not appear 
to have cherished very kindly feelings toward Jesus (John 3 : 25, 26), it is very pos- 
sible that they were united on this occasion with His avowed adversaries (Matthew). 
Jesus compares the days of His presence on the earth to a nuptial feast. The Old 
Testament had represented the Messianic coming of Jehovah by this figure. If 
John the Baptist had already uttered the words reported by John (3 : 29) : " He that 
hath the bride is the bridegroom ; but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth 
and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice : this my joy 
therefore is fulfilled " — what appropriateness there was in this figure by which He 
replied to His disciples I Perhaps the Pharisees authorized a departure from the rule 
respecting fasting during the nuptial weeks. In this case Jesus' reply would become 
more striking still. NvfMpuv signifies the nuptial chamber, and not the bridegroom 
(wfi(f>io$), as Martin, Ostervald, and Crampon translate. The true Greek term to in- 
dicate the nuptial friend would hate been 7rapavv(i<f>ios ; John says : <bilo$ tov vv/i<j>iov. 
The expression of the Syn,, son of the nuptial chamber, is .a Hebraism (comp. son of 
the kingdom, of wisdom, of perdition, etc,)- The received reading, " Can you make 
the marriage friends fast?" (notwithstanding the joy with which their hearts are 
full), is preferable to that of the Sinait. and of the Grseco-Latin Codd,, " Can they 
fast?" which is less forcible, and which is taken from Matthew and Mark. In the 
midst of this feast of publicans the heart of Jesus is overflowing with joy ; it is one of 
the hours when His earthly life seems to His feeling like a marriage day, But sud- 
denly His countenance becomes overcast ; the shadow of a painful vision passes 
across His brow : The days will came . . . said He in a solemn tone. At the 
close of this nuptial week the bridegroom Himself will be suddenly smitten and cut 
off ; then will come the time of fasting for those who to-day are rejoicing ; there will 
be no necessity to enjoin it. In this striking and poetic answer Jesus evidently an- 
nounces His violent death. The passive aor. cannot, as Bleek admits, be explained 
otherwise. This verb and tense indicate a stroke of violence, by w T hich the subject 
of the verb will be smitten (comp. 1 Cor. 5 : 2). This saying is parallel to the words 
found in John 2 : 19, " Destroy this temple ;" and 3 : 14, " As Moses lifted up the 
serpent, so must the Son of man be lifted up." The fasting which Jesus here op- 
poses to the prescribed fasting practised in Israel is neither a state of purely inward 
grief, a moral fast, in moments of spiritual depression, nor, as Neander thought, the 
life of privation and sacrifice to which the apostles would inevitably be exposed after 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 177 

the departure of their Master ; it is indeed, according to the context, fasting in the 
proper sense of the term. Fasting has always been practised in the Church at certain 
solemn seasons, but it is not a rite imposed on it from without, but the expression of 
a sentiment of real grief. It proceeds from the sorrow which the Church feels in 
the absence of its Head, and is designed to lend intensity to its prayers, and to 
insure with greater certainty that assistance of Jesus which alone can supply the 
place of His visible presence (comp. Mark 9 : 29 (?) ; Acts 12 : 2, 3 ; 14 : 23). This re- 
markable saying was preserved with literal exactness in the tradition ; accordingly 
we find it in identical words in the three Syn. It proves, first, that from the earliest 
period of His ministry Jesus regarded Himself as the Messiah ; next, that He 
identified His coming with that of Jehovah, the husband of Israel and of mankind 
(Hos. £r? 19) ; * lastly, that at that time He already foresaw and announced His vio- 
lent death. It is an error, therefore, to oppose, on these three points, the fourth 
Gospel to the other three. 

Vers. 36-39. Here we have the second part of the conversation. The expression 
eleye Si nai, and He said also, indicates its range. This expression, which occurs so 
frequently in Luke, always indicates the point at which Jesus, after having treated 
of the particular subject before Him, rises to a more general view which commands 
the whole question. Thus, from this moment He makes the particular difference 
respecting fasting subordinate to the general opposition between the old and new 
order of things — an idea which carries Him back to the occasion of the scene, the 
call of a publican. 

Ver. 36. f First Parable. — The T. R. says : " Nomanputteth a piece of new cloth 
unto an old garment." The Alex. var. has this : " No man, rending a piece from 
a new garment, putteth it to an old garment." In Matthew and Mark the new piece 
is taken from any piece of cloth ; in Luke, according to two readings, it is cut out of 
a whole garment ; the Alex, reading only puts this in a somewhat stronger form. 
The verb ox'^si, rends (Alex. ax^oEi, will rend), in the second proposition, might have 
the intransitive sense: "Otherwise the new [piece] maketh a rent [in the old]," 
which would come to the same meaning as the passage has in Matthew and Mark : 
" The new piece taketh away a part of the old, and the rent is made worse. But in 
Luke the context requires the active sense : " Otherwise it [the piece used to patch 
with] rendeth the new [garment]." This is the only sense admissible in the Alex, 
reading, after the partic. axioas, rending, in the preceding proposition. The received 
reading equally requires it: for, First. The second inconvenience indicated, "the 
new agreeth not with the old," would be too slight to be placed after that of the 
enlargement of the rent. Second. The evident correlation between the two icai, 
both. . . and . . . contains the following idea : the two garments, 
both the new and the old, are spoiled together ; the new, because it has been 
rent to patch the old ; the old, because it is disfigured by a piece of different 
cloth. Certainly it would still be possible to refer the expression, not agree, 
pot to the incongruity in appearance of the two cloths, but to the stronger and 
more resisting quality of the new cloth —an inequality which would have the effect 

* See Gess, " Christi Zeugniss," pp. 19, 20. 

t Ver. 36. &. B. D. L. X. Z. several Mnn. Syr. It ali *. omit airo before ifianov. &. 
B. 1>. L. Z. some Mnn. add er^aas before Eirij3a,AAEi. &. B. C. D. L. X., axioti, 
*vfi<l>uv7}CEi, instead of ox i &i, ovtiduvei. 8. B. C. L. X. A. add to empArma before to 
i~o tov Kacvov, 



178 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

of increasing the rent. This would be the untoward result intended in Matthew and 
Mark. But the term avfupovslv, to harmonize, refers much more naturally to a contrast 
in appearance between the two cloths. The futures, loill rend, will agree, in the Alex, 
reading, may be defended ; but are they not a correction proceeding from the use of 
the future in the second parable {will break, will be spilled, will perish, ver. 37) ? The 
corrector, in this case, could not have remembered that, in the case of the wine and 
the leathern bottles, the damage is only produced after a time, while in the garment 
it is immediate. To sum up : in Matthew and Mark there is only a single damage, 
that which befalls the old garment, the rent of which is enlarged ; in Luke the dam- 
age is twofold : in one case affecting the new garment, which is cut into to patch the 
other ; in the other, affecting the old garment, as in Matthew and Mark, but consist- 
ing in the patchwork appearance of the cloths, and not in the enlargement of the 
rent. 

In the application it is impossible not to connect this image of the piece of new 
cloth with the subject of the previous conversation, the rite of fasting, while we ad- 
mit that Jesus generalizes, the question. Moses had nowhere prescribed monthly or 
weekly fasts. The only periodical fast commanded in the law .was annual — that on 
the day of atonement. The regular fasts, such as those which the adversaries of 
Jesus would have had him impose on His disciples, were one of those Pharisaical in- 
ventions which the Jews called a hedge about the law, and b} T which they sought to 
complete and maintain the legal system. John the Baptist himself had been unable 
to do anything better than attach himself to this method. This is the patching- up 
process which is indicated in Matthew and Mark, and which is opposed to the mode 
of action adopted by Jesus — the total substitution of a new for an old garment. In 
Luke the image is still more full of meaning : -Jesus, alluding to that new, uncon- 
strained, evangelical fasting, of which He has spoken in ver. 34, and which He can- 
not at present require of His disciples, makes the general declaration that it is 
necessary to wait for the new life before creating its forms ; it is impossible to an T 
ticipate it by attempting to adapt to the legal system, under which His disciples are as 
yet living, the elements of the new state which He promises them. His mission is 
not to labor to repair and maintain 'an educational institution, now decaying and 
icaxing old {jTaAaiovjxevov ml yrjpaoiiov). He is not a patcher, as the Pharisees were, 
nor a reformer, like John the Baptist. Opus majus / It is a new garment that He 
brings. To mix up the old work with the new, would be to spoil the latter without 
preserving the former. It would be a violation of the unity of the spiritualism which 
he was about to inaugurate, and. to introduce into the legal system an offensive med- 
ley. Would not the least particle of evangelical freedom suffice to make every legal 
observance fall into disuse ? Better then let the old garment remain as it is, until the 
time comes to substitute the new for it altogether, than try to patch it up with strips 
taken from the latter ! As Lange says (" Leben Jesu," ii. p. 680): "The work of 
Jesus is too good to use it in repairing the worn garment of pharisaical Judaism, 
which could never thereby be made into anything better than the assumed garb of a 
beggar." This profound idea of the mingling of the new holiness with the ancient 
legalism comes out more clearly from Luke's simile, and cannot have been introduced 
into the words of Jesus by him. Neander thinks that the old garment must be re- 
garded as the image of the old unregenerate nature of the disciples, on which Jesus 
could not impose the forms of the new life. But the moral nature of man cannot be 



( 'OMMENTAKY OK ST. LTK7'. 1?9 

compared to a garment ; it is the man himself.* Gess applies the image of the piece 
of new cloth to the asceticism of John the Baptist. This meaning might suffice for 
the form of it in Matthew and Mark ; but it leaves Luke's form of it (a piece of the 
new garment) unexplained. 

What a view of His mission this word of Jesus reveals ! What a lofty conception 
of the work He came to accomplish ! From what a height He looks down, not only 
on the Pharisees, but on John himself, the great representative of the old covenant, 
the greatest of those born of women ! And all this is expressed in the simplest, home- 
liest manner, thrown off with the greatest facility ! He speaks as a being to whom 
nothing is so natural as the sublime. All that has been called the system of Paul, all 
that this apostle himself designates his gospel — the decisive contrast between the 
two covenants, the mutual exclusiveness of the systems of law and grace, of the 
oldness of the letter and the newness of the spirit (Rom. 7 : 6), this inexorable dilemma : 
" If by grace, then is it no more of works ; if it be of works, then is it no more 
grace" (Rom. 11 : 6), which constitutes the substance of the Epistles to the Romans 
and the Galatiaus — all is contained in this homely figure of a garment patched with a 
piece of cloth, or with part of a new garment ! How can any one, after this, main- 
tain that Jesus was not conscious from the beginning of the bearing of His work, as 
well of the task He had to accomplish in regard to the law, as of His Messianic 
dignity ? How can any one contend that the Twelve, to whom we owe the preserva- 
tion of this parable, were only narrow Jewish Christians, as prejudiced in favor of 
their law as the most extreme men of the party ? If they perceived the meaning of 
this saying alone, the part attributed to them becomes impossible. And if they had 
no comprehension of it, how was it that they thought it worthy of a place in the 
teaching of Jesus, which they handed down with such care to the Church ? 

Often, after having presented an idea by means of a parable, from a feeling that 
the figure employed fails to represent it completely, Jesus immediately adds a second 
parable, designed to set forth another aspect of the same idea. In this way are 
formed what may be called the pairs of parables, which are so often met with in the 
Gospels (the grain of mustard-seed and the leaven ; the treasure and the pearl ; the 
unwise builder and the imprudent warrior ; the sower and the tares). Following the 
same method, Jesus here adds to the parable of the piece of cloth that of the leathern 
bottles. 

Vers. 37, .38. f The Second Parable. — The figure is taken from the Oriental custom 
of preserving liquids in leathern bottles, made generally of goat- skins. " No one," 
says M. Pierotti, " travels in Palestine without having a leathern bottle filled with 
water among his luggage. These bottles preserve the water for drinking, without 
imparting any ill taste to it; also wine, oil, honey, and milk."l In this parable 
there is evidently an advance on the preceding, as we always find in the case of 
double parables. This difference of meaning, misapprehended by Neander and the 
greater part of interpreters, comes out more particularly from two features : 1. The 
opposition between the unity of the garment in the first, and the plurality of the bot- 
tles in the second ; 2. The fact that, since the new wine answers to the new garment, 



* Eph. 4 : 22, 24, is a metaphor, not a parable. 

t Ver. 38. &. B. L; and some Mnn. omit the words, kcu afuporepot cwrripovvTai. 
% "Macpelah," p. 78. The author gives a detailed description of the way in 
which these bottles are made. 



180 COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 

the new bottles must represent a different and entirely new idea. In fact, Jesus here 
is no longer opposing the evangelical principle to the legal principle, but the repre- 
sentatives of the one to those of the other. Two complaints were raised against 
Jesus : First. His negligence of the legal forms ; to this accusation He has just re- 
plied. Second. His contempt for the representatives of legalism, and His sympathy 
with those who had thrown off the theocratic discipline. It is to this second charge 
that He now replies. Nothing can be more simple than our parable from this point 
of view. The new wine represents that living and healthy spirituality which flows 
so abundantly through the teaching of Jesus ; and the bottles, the men who are to 
become the depositaries of this principle, and to preserve it for mankind. And 
whom in Israel will Jesus choose to fulfil this part ? The old practitioners of legal 
observance ? Pharisees purled up with the idea of their own merit ? Rabbis jaded 
with textual discussions ? Such persons have nothing to learn, nothing to receive 
from Him ! If associated with His work, they could not fail to falsify it, by mixing 
up with His instructions the old prejudices with which they are imbued ; or even if 
they should yield their hearts for a moment to the lofty thought of Jesus, it would 
put all their religious notions and routine devotion to the rout, just as new and spark- 
ling wine bursts a worn-out leathern bottle. Where, then, shall He choose His future 
instruments ? Among those who have neither merit nor wisdom of their own. He 
needs fresh natures, souls whose only merit is their receptivity, new men in the sense 
of the homo novus among the Romans, fair tablets on which His hand may write the 
characters of divine truth, without coming across the old traces of a false human wis- 
dom. " God, I thank Thee, because Thou hast hidden these things from the wise 
and prudent, and hast revealed them to these babes" (Luke 10 : 21). These babes 
will save the truth, and it will save them ; this is expressed b}" these last words : 
" and both, the wine and the bottles, are preserved." These words are omitted in 
Luke by some Alex. They are suspected of having been added from Matthew, 
where they are not wanting in any document ; Meyer's conjecture, that they have 
been suppressed, in accordance with Mark, is less probable. 

It has been thought that the old bottles represent the unregenerate nature of man, 
and the new bottles, hearts renewed by the Gospel. But Jesus would not have rep- 
resented the destruction of the old corrupt nature by the Gospel as a result, to be 
dreaded ; and He would scarcely have compared new hearts, the works of His Holy 
Spirit, to bottles, the existence of which precedes that of the wine which they con- 
tain. Lange and Gess see in the old bottles a figure of the legal forms, in the new 
bottles the image of the evangelical forms. But Christian institutions are an ema- 
nation of the Christian spirit, while the bottles exist independently of the wine with 
which they are filled. And Jesus would not have attached equal importance to the 
preservation of the wine and of the bottles, as He does in the words : " And both are 
preserved." It is a question, then, here of the preservation of the Gospel, and of 
the salvation of the individuals who are the depositaries of it. Jesus returns here to 
the fact which was the occasion of the whole scene, and which had called forth the 
dissatisfaction of His adversaries, the call of Levi the publican. It is this bold act 
which He justifies in the second parable, after having vindicated, in the first, the 
principle on which it was based. A new system demands new persons. This same 
truth will be applied on a larger scale, when, through the labors of St. Paul, the 
gospel shall pass from the Jews to the Gentiles, who are the new men in the kingdom 
of God. 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 181 

Ver. 89.* The Ihird Parable. — The thorough opposition which Jesus has just es- 
tablished between the legal system and the evangelical system (first parable), then 
between the representatives of the one and those of the other (second parable) must 
not lead the organs of the new principles to treat those of the ancient order with 
harshness. They must remember that it is not easy to pass from a system, with 
which one has been identified from childhood, to an entirely different principle of 
life. Such men must be allowed time to familiarize themselves with the new princi- 
ple that is presented to them ; and we must beware how we turn our backs upon 
them, if they do not answer, as Levi the publican did, to the first call. The conver- 
sion of a publican may be sudden as lightning, but that of a scrupulous observer of 
the law will, as a rule, be a work of prolonged effort. This figure, like that of the 
preceding parable, is taken from the actual circumstances. Conversation follows a 
meal ; the wine in the bottles circulates among the guests. With the figure of the 
bottles, which contain the wine, is easily connected the idea of the individuals who 
drink it. The new wine, however superior may be its quality, owing to its sharper 
flavor, is always repugnant to the palate of a man accustomed to wine, the rough- 
ness of which has been softened by age. In the same way, it is natural that those 
who have long rested in the works of the law, should at first take alarm — Jesus can 
well understand it — at the principle of pure spirituality. It is altogether an error in 
the Alex, that has erased here the word ev0e6<, immediately. The very idea of the 
parable is concentrated in this adverb. We must not judge such people by their first 
impression. The antipathy which they experience at the first moment will perhaps 
give place to a contrary feeling. We must give them time, ag Jesus did Nicodemus. 
There is a tone of kindly humor in these words : for he sailh, " Attempt to bring- 
over to gospel views these old followers of legal routine, and immediately they tell 
you . . ."If, with the Alex, the positive XP 7 ! ™** h read : " the old is mild," 
the repugnance for the new wine is more strongly marked than if we read, with the 
T. R t the comparative : xP' r l (TT ° T£ P '*> milder ; for in the first case the antithesis im- 
plied is : " The new is not mild at all." As the idea of comparison runs through the 
entire phrase,* the copyists were induced to substitute the comparative for the posi- 
tive. The Alex, reading is therefore preferable. 

" It was a great moment," as Gess truly says, " when Jesus proclaimed in a sin- 
gle breath these three things : the absolute newness of His Spirit, His dignity as the 
Husband, and the nearness of His violent death." If the first parable contains the 
germ of Paul's doctrine, and the second foreshadows His work among the Gentiles, 
the third lays down the principle whence He derived His mode of acting toward His 
fellow-countrymen ; making Himself all things to all by subjecting Himself to the 
law, in order to gain them that were under the law (1 Cor. 9 : 19, 20). What gentle- 
ness, condescension, and charity breathe through this saying of Jesus ! What sweet- 
ness, grace, and appropriateness characterize its form ! Zeller would have us believe 
(" Apostelgesch." p. 15) that Luke invented this touching saying, and added it on his 
own authority, in order to render the decided Paulinism of the two preceding par- 
ables acceptable to Jewish-Christian readers. But does he not see that in saying this 
he vanquishes himself by his own hand ? If the two former parables are so Pauline, 
that Luke thought he must soften down their meaning by a corrective of his own in- 
vention, how comes it to pass that the two other Syn., the Gospels which are in the 
main Jewish -Christian, have transmitted them to the Church, without the slightest 
softening down ? Criticism sometimes loses its clear-sightedness through excessive 

* D. ItP leri< i ne , and probably Eusebius, omit this verse. &. B. C. L. omit evBeuS. 
5*. B. L. two Mnn. Syr sch ., xPV^Toq instead of xpv^ t °t £ P v c. 



182 COMMENTAKY ON ST. LUKE. 

sharpness. That the ultra-Pauline Marcion should have omitted this third parable is 
perfectly natural ; it proves that he thoroughly understood it, for it carries -with it 
the condemnation of his system. But no consequence unfavorable to its authenticity 
can be drawn from this. The omission of this verse in D., and some versions, is no 
less easily explained by its omission in the two oiher synoptics. 

The independence of Luke's text, and the originality of its sources, come out 
clearly from this last passage, which forms such an excellent close to this portion. 
The difference which we have pointed out in the purport of the first parable, a dif- 
ference which is entirely in Luke's favor, also attests the excellence of the document 
from which he has drawn. As to the others, they are no more under obligation to 
Luke than Luke is to them ; would they, of their own accord, have made the teach- 
ing of Jesus more anti-legal than it was ? 

5. A Sabbath Scene : 6 : 1-5. — The two Sabbath scenes which follow, provoke, at 
last, the outbreak of the conflict, which, as we have seen, has long been gathering 
strength. We have already noted several symptoms of the hostility which was be- 
ginning to be entertained toward Jesus : ver. 14 {for a testimony unto them) ; ver. 21 
(lie blasphemeth) ; vers. 80-33 (the censure implied in both questions). It is the ap- 
parent contempt of Jesus for the ordinance of the Sabbath, which in Luke as well as 
in John (chaps. 5 and 9), alike in Galilee and in Judaea, provokes the outbreak of this 
latent irritation, and an open rupture between Jesus and the dominant party. Is 
there not something in this complete parallelism that abundantly compensates for the 
superficial differences between the synoptical narrative and John's ? 

"Vers. 1-5. * The term second-first is omitted by the Alex. But this omission is 
condemned by Tischefldorf himself. Matthew and Mark presented nothing at all like 
it, and they did not know what meaning to give to the word, which is found nowhere 
else in the whole compass of sacred and profane literature. There are half a score 
explanations of it. Chrysostom supposed that when two festival and Sabbath days 
followed each other, the first received the name of second-first : the first of the two. 
This meaning does not give a natural explanation of the expression. Wetslein and 
Storr say that the first Sabbath of the first, second, and third months of the year 
were called first, second, and third ; the second-first Sabbath would thus be the first 
Sabbath of the second month. This meaning, although not very natural, is less 
forced. Scaliger thought that, as they reckoned seven Sabbaths from the 16th 
Kisan. the second day of the Passover feast, to Pentecost, the second-first Sabbath 
denoted the first of the seven Sabbaths : the first Sabbath after the second day of the 
Passover. This explanation, received by De Wette, Neander, and other moderns, 
agrees very well with the season when the following scene must have taken place. 
But the term does not correspond naturally with the idea. Wieseler supposes that 
the first Sabbath of each of the seven years which formed a Sabbatic cycle was called 
first, second, third Sabbath : thus the second-first Sabbath would denote the first 
Sabbath of the second year of the septenary cycle. This explanation has been favor- 
ably received by modern exegesis. It appears to us, however, less probable than that 
which Louis Cappel was the first to offer : The civil year of the Israelites commenc- 
ing in autumn, in the month Tizri (about mid-September to mid-October), and the 
ecclesiastical year in the month Nisan (about mid-March to mid-April), there were 

* Ver. 1. &. B. L. some Mnn. Syr sch . It ali i. omit devTepoirpoTu. Ver. 2. &. B. C. 
L. X. some Mnn. omit avrots. Ver. 3. &. B. D. L. X. Syr. omit ovres. Ver. 4. & 
D. K. n. some Mnn. omit e7ia$e Kat ; B. C. L. X. read ?.a(3ov. Ver.' 5. D. places 
this verse after ver. 10. See at ver. 5 (the end.) 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 183 

thus every year two first Sabbaths : one at the commencement of the civil year, of 
which the name would have been first-first ; the other at the beginning of the relig- 
ious year, which would be called second-first. This explanation is very simple in it- 
self, and the form of the Greek term favors it : second-first signifies naturally a first 
doubled or twice over (bisse). But there is yet another explanation which appears to 
us still more probable. Proposed by Selden,* it has been reproduced quite lately by 
Andrese in his excellent article on the day of Jesus' death. f When the observers in- 
trusted with the duty of ascertaining the appearance of the new moon, with a view 
to fixing the first day of the month, did not present themselves before the commission 
of the SaDhedrim assembled to receive their deposition until after the sacrifice, this 
day was indeed declared the first of the month, or monthly (ad33arcv irpurov, first 
Sabbat?i) ; but as the time of offering the sacrifice of the new moon was passed, they 
sanctified the following da} r , or second of the month (cd(33aTov SevrepowpuTov, second- 
first Sabbath), as well. This meaning perfectly agrees with the idea naturally ex- 
pressed by this term (a first twice over), and with the impression it gives of having 
been taken from the subtleties of the Jewish calendar. 

Bleek, ill-satisfied with these various explanations, supposes an interpolation. 
But why should it have occurred in Luke rather than in Matthew and Mark ? Meyer 
thinks that a copyist had written in the margin npuTu, first, in opposition to erepa, the 
other (Sabbath), ver. 6 ; that the next copyist, wishing, in consideration of the Sab- 
bath indicated 4 : 81, to correct this gloss, wrote devrepu, second, in place of Trpwro, 
first ; and that, lastly, from these two glosses together came the word second-first, 
which has made its way into the text. "What a tissue of improbabilities ! Holtzmann 
thinks that Luke had written npuru, the first, dating from the journey recorded in 
4 : 44, and that in consideration of 4 : 31 some over-careful corrector added the 
second; whence our reading. But is not the interval which separates our narrative 
from 4 : 44 too great for Luke to have employed the word first in reference to this 
journey ? And what object could he have had in expressing so particularly this 
quality of first ? Lastly, how did the gloss of this copyist find its way into such a 
large number of documents ? Weizsacker (" Unters." p. 59) opposes the two first Sab- 
baths mentioned in 4 : 16, 33, to the two mentioned here (vers. 1, 6), and thinks that 
the name second-first means here fhe first of the second group. How can any one at- 
tribute such absurd trifling to a serious writer ! This strange term cannot have been 
invented by Luke ; neither could it have been introduced accidentally by the copyists. 
Taken evidently from the Jewish vocabulary, it holds its place in Luke, as a witness 
attesting the originality and antiquity of his sources of information. Further, this 
precise designation of the Sabbath when the incident took place points to a narrator 
who witnessed the scene. 

From Mark's expression irapaTropeveaBac, to pass by the side of, it would seem to 
follow that Jesus was passing along the side of, and not, as Luke says, across the 
field (dtaTTopevecQcu). But as Mark adds : through the corn, it is clear that he describes 
two adjacent fields, separated by a path. The act of the disciples was expressly 
authorized by the law (Deut. 23 : 25). But it was done on the Sabbath day ; there 
was the grievance. To gather and rub out the ears was to harvest, to grind, to labor ! 
It was an infraction of the thirty-nine articles which the Pharisees had framed into 

* " De anno civili et calendario veteris ecclesiae judaicse." 
f In the journal : Beweis des Glaubens, September. 1870, 



184 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

a Sabbatic code, ipc^ovres, rubbing out, is designedly put at the end of the phrase : 
this is the labor ! Meyer, pressing the letter of Mark's text, odov rromv, to make a 
way, maintains that the disciples were not thinking of eating, but simply wanted to 
make themselves a passage across the field by plucking the ears of corn. According 
to him, the middle iroielodai, not the active iroielv, would have been necessary for the 
ordinary sense. He translates, therefore : they cleared a way by plucking (riXAovres) 
the ears of corn (Mark omits \p6x oVT£! *> Tubbing them out). He concludes from this 
that Mark alone has preserved the exact form of the incident, which has been altered 
in the other two through the influence of the next example, which refers to food. 
Holtzmann takes advantage of this idea to support the hypothesis of a proto-Mark. 
But, 1. What traveller would ever think of clearing a passage through a field of 
wheat by plucking ear after ear ? 2. If we were to lay stress on the active noielv, as 
Meyer does, it would signify that the disciples made a road for the public, and not 
for themselves alone ; for in this case also the middle would be necessary ! The 
ordinary sense is therefore the only one possible even in Mark, and the critical con- 
clusions in favor of the proto-Mark are without foundation. The Hebraistic form of 
Luke's phrase (k-yivero . . . teal etiXXov) which is not found in the other two, 
proves that he has a particular document. As to who these accusers were, comp. 
5 : 17, 21 : 30-33. The word avrols, which the Alex, omits, has perhaps been added 
on account of the plural that follows : Why do ye . . . ? It follows from this in- 
cident that Jesus passed a spring, and consequently a Passover also, in Galilee be- 
fore His passion. A remarkable coincidence also with the narrative of John (6 : 4). 
The illustration taken from 1 Sam. 21, cited in vers. 3 and 4, is very appropriately 
chosen. Jesus would certainly have had no difficulty in showing that the act of the 
disciples, although opposed perhaps to the Pharisaic code, was in perfect agreement 
with the Mosaic commandment. But the discussion, if placed on this ground, might 
have degenerated into a mere casuistical question ; He therefore transfers it to a 
sphere in which He feels Himself master of the position. The conduct of David rests 
upon this principle, that in exceptional cases, -when a moral obligation clashes with a 
ceremonial law, the latter ought to yield. And for this reason. The rite is a means, 
but the moral duty is an end ; now, in case of conflict, the end has priority over the 
means. The absurdity of Pharisaism is just this, that it subordinates the end to the 
means. It was the duty of the high priest to preserve the life of David and his com- 
panions, having regard to their mission, even at the expense of the ritual command- 
ment ; for the rite exists for the theocracy, not the theocracy for the rite. Besides, 
Jesus means to clinch the nail, to show His adversaries — and this is the sting of His 
reply — that when it is a question of their own particular advantage (saving a head of 
cattle for instance) they are ready enough to act in a similar way, sacrificing the rite 
to what they deem a higher interest (13 : 11 et seq.). De Wette understands ovdi in 
the sense of not even: " Do you not even know the history of your great king?" 
This sense would come very near to the somewhat ironical turn of Mark: "Have 
you never read . . . — never once, in the course of your profound biblical 
studies V But it appears more simple to explain it as Bleek does : " Have you not 
also read . . ? Does not this fact appear in your Bible as well as the ordinance 
of the Sabbath?" The detail : and to those who were with him, is not distinctly ex- 
pressed in the O. T. ; but whatever Bleek may say, it is implied ; David would not 
have asked for five loaves for himself alone. Jesus mentions it because He wishes to 
institute a parallel between His apostles and David's followers. The pron. ovs does 



C031ME1STARY OX ST. LUKE. ^ 185 

not refer to roZs /*er' avrov as in Matthew (the present it-eon does not permit of it), 
hut to aprovs, as the object of yayelv ; el /xlj is therefore taken here in its regular sense. 
It is not so in Matthew, where el pri is used as in Luke 4 : 26, 27. Mark gives the 
name of the high priest as Abiathar, while according to 1 Sam. it was Ahimelech, his 
son (comp. 2 Sam. 8:17; 1 Chron. 8 : 16), or his father (according to Josephus, Antiq. 
vi. 12. 6). The question is obscure. In Matthew, Jesus gives a second instance of 
transgression of the Sabbath, the labor of the priests in the temple on the Sabbath 
day, in connection with the burnt-offerings and other religious services. If the work 
of God in the temple liberates man from the law of the Sabbath rest, how much more 
must the service of Him who is Lord even of the temple raise him to the same 
liberty ! 

The Cod. D. and one Mn. here add the following narrative : " The same day, 
Jesus, seeing a man who was working on the Sabbath, saith to him : O man, if thou 
knowest what thou art doing, blessed art thou ; but if thou knowest not, thou art 
cursed, and a transgressor of the law." This narrative is an interpolation similar to 
that of the story in John of the woman taken in adultery, but with this difference, 
that the latter is probably the record of a real fact, while the former can only be an 
invention or a perversion. Nobody could have labored publicly in Israel on the Sab- 
bath day without being instantly punished ; and Jesus, who never permitted Himself 
the slightest infraction of a true commandment of Moses (whatever interpreters may 
say about it), certainly would not have authorized this premature emancipation in 
any one else. 

After having treated the question from a legal point of view, Jesus rises to the 
principle. Even had the apostles broken the Sabbath rest, they would not have 
sinned ; for the Son of man has the disposal of the Sabbath, and they are in His 
service. We find again here the well-known expression, ndi e?»eyev, and He said to 
them, the force of which is (see at ver. 36) : " Besides, I have something more impor- 
tant to tell you." The Sabbath, as an educational institution, is only to remain until 
the moral development of mankind, for the sake of which it was instituted, is accom- 
plished. When this end is attained, the means naturally fall into disuse. Now, this 
moment is reached in the appearance of the Son of man. The normal representative 
of the race, He is Himself the realization of this end ; He is therefore raised above 
the Sabbath as a means of education ; He may consequently modify the form of it, 
and even, if He think fit, abolish it altogether, Kai : even of the Sabbath, this pecu- 
liar property of Jehovah ; with how much greater reason, of all the rest of the law ! * 
How can any one maintain, in the face of such a saying as this, that Jesus only 
assumed the part of the Messiah after the conversation at Caesarea-Philippi (9 : 18), 
and when moved to do so by Peter ? 

Mark inserts before this declaration one of those short and weighty sayings (he has 
preserved several of them), which he cannot have invented or added of his own 
authority, and which the other two Syn. would never have left out, had they made 

* It is not without justification that Ritschl, in his fine work, " Entstehung der 
altkathol. Kirche," 2d ed., sets out to prove from this passage, which is common to 
the three Syn., that the abolition of the law, the necessar}*- condition of Christian 
universalism, is not an idea imported into the religion of Jesus by Paul, but au in- 
tegral element of the teaching of Jesus Himself. It belongs to that common founda- 
tion on which rest both the work of Paul and that of the Twelve ; this is already 
proved by the parable of the two garments (ver. 36). 



186 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

use of his book or of the document of which he availed himself (the proto-Mark) : 
" The Sabbath is made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." God did not cieate 
man for the greater glory of the Sabbath, bat He ordained the Sabbath for the greater 
welfare of man. Consequently, whenever the welfare of man and the rest of the 
Sabbath happen to clash, the Sabbath must yield. So that (uore, Mark 2 ; 28) the 
Son of man, inasmuch as He is head of the race, has a right to dispose of this institu- 
tion. This thought, distinctly expressed in Mark, is just what we have had to supply 
in order to explain the argument in Luke. 

Are we authorized to infer from this saying the immediate abolition of every Sab- 
batic institution in the Christian Church ? By no means. Just as, in His declara- 
tion, vers. 34, 35, Jesus announced not the abolition of fasting, but the substitution 
of a more spiritual for the legal fast, so this saying respecting the Sabbath fore- 
shadows important modifications of the form of this institution, but not its entire 
abolition, It will cease to be a slavish observance, as in Judaism, and will become 
the satisfaction of an inward need, Its complete abolition will come to pass only 
when redeemed mankind shall all have reached the perfect stature of the Son of man. 
The principle : The Sabbath is made for man, will retain a certain measure of its 
force as long as this earthly economy shall endure, for which the Sabbath was first 
established, and to the nature of which it is so thoroughly fitted. 

6. A Second- Sabbath Scene: 6 : 6-11.— Vers. 3-11.* Do Matthew and Mark place 
the following incident on the same day as the preceding ? It is impossible to say {txoIw, 
in Mark, does not refer to 2 : 23, but to 1 : 21). Luke says positively, on another 
Sabbath. He has therefore His own source of information. This is confirmed by 
the character of the style, which continues to be decidedly Hebraistic (nal . . . 
nal . . . instead of the relative pronoun). The withering of the hand denotes para- 
lysis resulting from the absence of the vital juices, the condition which is commonly 
described as atrophy. In Matthew, the question whether it is right to heal on the Sab- 
bath day is put to the Lord by His adversaries, which, taken literally, would be 
highly improbable. It is evident that Matthew, as usual, condenses the account of 
the fact, and hastens to the words of Jesus, which he relates at greater length than 
the others. His adversaries, no doubt, did put the question, but, as Luke and Mark 
tell us, simply in intention and by their looks. They watch to see how He will act. 
The present Qepanevst,, whether He heals, in the Alex. , would refer to the habit of 
Jesus, to His principle of conduct. This turn of expression is too far-fetched. The 
spies want more particularly to ascertain what He will do now ; from the fact they 
will easily deduce the principle. The received reading Qepanevcei, whether He will 
heal, must therefore be preferred. The Rabbis did riot allow of any medical treat- 
ment on the Sabbath day, unless delay would imperil life ; the strictest school, that 
of Shammai, forbade even the consolation of the sick on that day (Schabbat xii. 1). ♦ 

Ver. 8. Jesus penetrates at a glance the secret spy system organized against Him. 

* Ver. 7. 14 Mjj. several Mnn. It. omit avrov after 6e. &. A. D. L. n. : 
QepaTrevet instead of SepaTrevaei. &* B. S. X. some Mnn. Syr. It ali i. : Kanj-yopeiv in- 
stead of KaTTjyopiav. Ver. 8. & B. L. some Mnn. ; avdpt instead of avdpu7ro). Ver. 9. 
IS. B. L. : enepoTa) instead of eirepuTTjaco. &. B. D. L. ItP leri( i ue : v/ias ei instead of vjuas 
ti. &. B. D. L. X. Syr sch . Itpierique . a7ro heoai instead of ar.oKrtivai. Ver. 10. 13 
Mjj. : avru instead of to avBpoiru, which is the reading of T. R. with &. D. L. X. It. 
T. R. with K. n. several Mnn.: enoirioev ovrug : 12 Mjj. 80 Mnn. omit ovtuS. &. D. 
X. several Mnn. It. e^ereivsv. 11 Mjj. several Mnn. Syr. It. omitvyiys. 13 Mjj. many 
Mnn, read ws if aX/.rj, which T. R. with ^. B. L. omit, 



I O.tfMENTARY ON ST. LUKK. 18 1 

and seems to take pleasure in giving the work He is about to perform the greatest 
publicity possible. Commanding the man to place himself in the midst of the as- 
sembly, He makes him the subject of a veritable theological demonstration. Mat- 
thew omits these dramatic details which Mark and Luke have transmitted to us. 
Would he have omitted them had he known them ? He could not have had the al- 
leged proto-Mark before him, unless it is supposed that the author of our canonical 
Mark added these details on his own authority. But in this case, how comes Mark 
to coincide with Luke, who, according to this hypothesis, had nut our actual Mark 
in his hands, but simply the primitive Mark (the common source of our three Syn.) ? 
Here plainly is a labyrinth from which criticism, having once entered on a wrong 
path, is unable to extricate itself. The skilfulness of the question proposed by the 
Lord (ver. 9) consists in its representing good omitted as evil committed. The ques- 
tion thus puts answers itself ; for what Pharisee would venture to make the preroga- 
tive of the Sabbath to consist in a permission to torture and kill with impunity on that 
day ? This question is one of those marks of genius, or rather one of those inspira- 
tion of the heart, which enhance our knowledge of Jesus. By reason of His com- 
passion, He feels Himself responsible for all the suffering which He fails to relieve. 
But, it may be asked, could He not have put off the cure until the next day ? To 
this question He would have given the same answer as any one of us : To-morrow 
belongs to God ; only to-day belongs to me. The present etteputu, I ask you (Alex.), 
is more direct and severe, and consequently less suited the Lord's frame of mind at 
this moment, than the future of the T. R. : 1 icill ask you. For the same reason, 
we think, we must read, not el, if, or is it, with the Alex., but re, and make this word 
not a complement : <: I ask you what is allowable," a form in which the intentional 
sharpness of His address is softened down too much (see the contrary case, 7 : 40), 
but the subject of e^san : " I ask you ; answer me ! What is permitted, to . . . 
or to . . . for in my position I must do one, or the other. " Matthew places here 
the illustration of the sheep fallen into a ditch, an argument which, as we shall see, 
is better placed in Luke (14 : 5, 6). Ver. 10. A profound silence (Mark 3 : 4) is the 
only answer to this question. Those who laid the snare are taken in it themselves. 
Jesus then surveys His adversaries, ranged around Him, with a long and solemn gaze. 
This striking moment, omitted in Matthew, is noticed in Luke ; in Mark it is de- 
scribed in the most dramatic manner. We feel here how much Mark owes to some 
source of information closely connected with the person of the Saviour ; he describes 
the feeling of sorrowful indignation which eye-witnesses couid read in His glance : 
"with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts." The command Jesus 
gives the sick man to stretch forth his hand, affords room for surprise. Is it not pre- 
cisely what he was unable to do ? But, like every call addressed to faith, this com- 
mand contained a promise of the strength necessary to accomplish it, provided the 
will to obey was there. He must make the attempt, depending on the word of Jesus 
(ver. 5), and divine power will accompany the effort. The word vyir/S is probably 
taken from Matthew ; it is omitted by six Mjj. It would be hazardous, perhaps, to 
erase also the words uc v alii) with the three Mjj. which omit them. It is here that 
Cod. D. places the general proposition, ver. 5. 

The Jewish-Christian Gospel which Jerome had found among the Nazarenes re- 
lates in detail the prayer of this sick man : " I was a mason, earning my livelihood 
with my own hands ; I pray thee, Jesus, to- restore me to health, in order that I may 
not with shame beg my bread." This is an instance of how amplification and vul- 



188 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

garity meet us directly we step beyond the threshold of the canonical Gospels. 
Apostolical dignity has disappeared. 

The word avoia (ver. 11), properly madness, by which Luke expresses the effect 
produced on the adversaries of Jesus, denotes literally the absence of vovc, of the 
power to discriminate the true from the false. They were fools through rage,, Luke 
means. In fact, passion destroys a man's sense of the good and true. Matthew and 
Mark notice merely the external result, the plot which from this moment was laid 
against the life of Jesus : " They took counsel to kill Him ;" Mark adds to the Phari- . 
sees, the Herodians. The former, in fact, could take no effectual measures in Galilee 
against the person of Jesus without the concurrence of, Herod ; and in order to obtain 
this, it was necessary to gain over his counsellors to their plans. Why should they 
not hope to induce this king to do to Jesus what he had already done to John the 
Baptist ? 

Holtzmann thinks it may be proved, by the agreement of certain words of Jesus 
in the three narratives, that they must have had a common written source. As if 
words so striking as these : The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath day, could not 
be preserved by oral tradition ! The characteristic divergences which we have ob- 
served at every line in the historical sketch of the narrative, are incompatible, as we 
have seen, with the use of a common document. 

third cycle. — chap. 6 ; 12-8 : 56. 
From the Election of the Twelve to their First Mission. 

In the following section we shall see the Galilean ministry reach its zenith ; it be- 
gins with the institution of the apostolate and the most important of Jesus' discourses 
during His sojourn in Galilee, the Sermon on the Mount ; and it ends with a cycle of 
miracles that display the extraordinary power of Jesus in all its grandeur (8 : 22-56). 
The hostility against Him seems to moderate; but it "is sharpening its weapons in 
secret ; in a very little while it will break out afresh. 

This section comprises eleven portions : 1st, the choosing of the Twelve, and the 
Sermon on the Mount (6 : 12-49) ; 2d, the healing of the centurion's servant 
(7 : 1-10) ; 3d, the raising of the widow's son at Nain (7 : 11-17) ; 4dh, the question of 
John the Baptist, and the discourse of Jesus upon it (7 :• 18-35) ; 5th, the woman that 
was a sinner at the feet of Jesus (7 : 36-50) ; 6th, the women who ministered to Jesus' 
support (8 : 1-3) ; 1th, the parable of the sower (8 : 4-18) ; 8th, the visit of the mother 
and brethren of Jesus (8 : 19-21) ; 9th, the stilling of the storm (8 : 22-25) ; 10i7i, the 
healing of the demoniac of Gadara (8 : 26-39 ; 11th, the raising of Jai*rus' daughter 
(8 : 40-56). 

1. The Choosing of the Twelve, and the Sermon on the Mount : 6 : 12-49. — Our affix- 
ing this title to this portion implies two things : 1st, that there is a close connection 
between the two facts contained in this title ; 2d, that the discourse, Luke 6 : 20-49, 
is the same as that we read in Matt. 5-7. The truth of the first supposition, from 
Luke's point of view, appears from ver. 20, where he puts the discourse which fol- 
lows in close connection with the choosing of the Twelve which he has just narrated. 
The truth of the second is disputed by those who think that in consequence of this 
choice Jesus spoke two discourses — one on the summit of the mountain, addressed 
specially to His disciples — the second lower down on level ground, addressed to the 
multitude ; the former, which was of a more private character, being that of Mat- 



COMMENTARY 0$ ST. LUKE. 189 

thew ; the latter, of a more popular aim, that of Luke.* They rely on the differences 
in substance and form between the two discourses in our two Gospels. In regard to 
the substance, the essential matter in the discourse of Matthew, the opposition be- 
tween the righteousness of the Pharisees and the true righteousness of the kingdom 
of heaven, is not found at all in Luke. As to the form, in Matthew Jesus ascends 
the mountain to preach it, while in Luke He comes down, after having spent the 
night on the summit. Further, there He is seated (/ca0*cravros avTov, Matt. 5:1); here 
He appears to be standing (cottj, Luke 6 : 17). Notwithstanding these reasons, we 
cannot admit that there were two distinct discourses: They both begin in the same 
way, with the beatitudes ; they both treat of the same subject, the righteousness of 
the kingdom of God — with this shade of difference, that the essence of this righteous- 
ness, in Matthew, is spirituality ; in Luke, charity. They both have the same con- 
clusion, the parable of the two buildings. This resemblance in the plan of the dis- 
course is so great that it appears to us decidedly to take precedence of the second- 
ary differences. As to the differences of form, it should be observed that Luke's ex- 
pression, £7ri tokov nedtvov, literally, on a level place, denotes a flat place on the 
mountain. To denote the plain, Luke would have said, eiri ixedlov. Luke's expres- 
sion is not, therefore, contradictory to Matthew's. The latter, as usual, giving a 
summary narrative, tells us that Jesus preached this time on the mountain, in 
opposition to the plain, the sea-side that is, where He usually preached ; while Luke, 
who describes in detail all the circumstances of this memorable day, begins by men- 
tioning the night which Jesus spent alone on the summit of the mountain ; next he 
tells how He descended to a level place situated on the mountain side, where He 
stayed to speak to the people. This plateau was still the mountain in Matthew's 
sense. On the relation of larri (Luke) to He sat dozen (Matthew), see on ver. 17. 

In order to understand the Sermon on the Mount, it is necessary to form a correct 
view of the historical circumstances which were the occasion of it ; for this sermon 
is something more than an important piece of instruction delivered by Jesus ; it is 
one of the decisive acts of His ministry. We have pointed out in the preceding sec- 
tion the symptoms of a growing rupture between Jesus and the hierarchical party 
(vers. 14, 17, 21-23 ; 6 : 1 seq). The bold attitude which Jesus assumes toward this 
party, challenging its hostility^ by calling a publican, by emphasizing in His teaching 
the antithesis between the old and new order of things, and by openly braving their 
Sabbatarian prejudices — all this enables us to see that a crisis in the development of 
His work has arrived. It is an exactly corresponding state of things for Galilee to 
that which was brought about in Judaea after the healing of the impotent man on the 
Sabbath (John 5). The choice of the Twelve and the Sermon on the Mount are the 
result and the solution of this critical situation. Up to this time Jesus had been satis- 
fied with gathering converts about Him, calling some of them to accompany Him 
habitually as disciples. Now He saw that the moment was come to give His work a 
more definite form, and to organize His adherents. The hostile army is preparing 
for the attack ; it is time to concentrate His own forces ; and consequently He be- 
gins, if I may venture to say so, by drawing up His list of officers. The choosing of 
the Twelve is the first constitutive act accomplished by Jesus Christ. It is the first 
measure, and substantially (with the sacraments) the only measure, of organization 

* Lange, " Leben Jesu," book ii. pp. 567-570. St. Augustine and the greater 
part of the Latin Fathers of the Church hold that there were two discourses. 



190 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

which He ever took. It sufficed Him, since the college of the Twelve, once consti- 
tuted, was in its turn to take what further measures might be required when the time 
came for them. The number 12 was significant. Jesus set up in their "persons the 
twelve patriarchs of a new people of God, a spiritual Israel, that was to be substituted 
for the old. Twelve new tribes were to arise at their word and form the holy 
humanity which Jesus came to install in the earth. An act more expressly Messianic 
it is impossible to conceive ; and the criticism which maintains that it was only at 
Caesarea-Philippi, and at the instigation of Peter, that Jesus decisively accepted the 
part of Messiah, must begin by effacing from history the choosing of the Twelve, 
with its manifest signification. Further, this act is the beginning of the di- 
vorce between Jesus and the ancient people of God. The Lord does not begin 
to frame a , new Israel until He sees the necessity of breaking with the 
old. He has labored in vain to transform ; nothing now remains but to substi- 
tute. This attentive crowd which surrounds Him on the mountain is the nucleus of 
the new people ; this discourse which He addresses to them is the promulgation of 
the new law by which they are to be governed ; this moment is the solemn inaugura- 
tion of the people of Jesus Christ upon the earth — of that people which, by means of 
individual conversions, is eventually to absorb into itself all that belongs to God 
among all other peoples. Hence this discourse has a decidedly inaugural character 
— a character which, whatever Weizsacker * may say about it, belongs no less to its 
form in Luke than to its form in Matthew. In the latter, Jesus addresses Himself, if 
you will, to the apostles, but as representing the 'entire new Israel. In Luke, He 
rather speaks, if you will, to the new Israel, but as personified in the person of the 
apostles. In reality this makes no difference. The distinction between apostles and 
believers is nowhere clearly asserted. Every believer is to be the salt of the earth, 
the light of the world (Matthew) ; every apostle is to be one of those 'poor, hungry, 
tceeping, persecuted ones of which the new people is to be composed (Luke). Just as, 
at Sinai, Jehovah makes no distinction between priests and people, so it is His people, 
with all the constitutive elements of their life, whose appearance Jesus hails, whose 
new character He portrays, and whose future action on the world He proclaims. 
Further, He felt most deeply the importance of this moment, and prepared Himself 
for it by a whole night of meditation and prayer. The expressions of Luke upon this 
point (ver. 12) have, as we shall see, quite a special character. 

The Sermon on the Mount occupies quite a different place in Matthew to that 
which it holds in Luke. That evangelist has made it the opening of the Galilean 
ministry, and he places it, therefore, immediately after the call of the four first dis- 
ciples. Historically speaking, this position is a manifest anachronism. How, at the \ 
very cpmmencement of His work, could Jesus speak of persecutions for His name, as 
He does, Matt. 5 : 10, 11, or feel it necessary to justify Himself against the charge of 
destroying the law (ver. 17), and J,o give a solemn warning to false disciples 
(7 : 21-23) ? The position of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew is only to be un- 
derstood from the systematic point of view from which this evangelist wrote. There 
was no better way in which the author could show the Messianic dignity of Jesus than 
by opening the history of His ministry with this discourse, in which was laid down 
the basis of that spiritual kingdom which the Messiah came to found. If the collec- 
tion of the discourses composed by Matthew, of which Papias speaks, really existed, 

* " Untersuchungen iiber die evang. Gesch." pp. 45 and 46, note, 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 191 

and served as a foundation for our Gospel, the position which this discourse occupies 
in the latter is fully accounted for. 

As to Mark, we can easily perceive the precise point in his sketch where the Ser- 
mon on the Mount should come in (3 : I'd et seq.). But the discourse itself is wanting, 
doubtless because it was no part of his design to give it to his readers. Mark's nar- 
rative is nevertheless important, in that it substantiates that of Luke, and confirms 
the significance attributed by this evangelist to the act of the choosing of the 
Twelve. Tnis comparison with the two other Syn. shows how well Luke under- 
stood the development of the work of Jesus, and the superior chronological skill with 
which he compiled his narrative (nade^g ypdfai, 1:8). 

Gess has replied to our objections against the chronological accuracy of Matthew's 
narrative (Litter. Anzeiger of Andrea?, September, 1871) in the following manner : 
The mention of the persecutions might refer to the fact mentioned John 4 : 1, and 
to the fate of John the Baptist : the charge of undermining the law had already been 
made in Judaea (comp. John 5) ; the false disciples might have been imitators of the 
man who wrought cures in the name of Jesus (Luke 9 : 49 ; Mark 9 : 38), although of 
a less pure character. And, in any case, the time of the discourse indicated by Luke 
does not differ sensibly from that at which Matthew places it. But neither the hos- 
tility which Jesus had met with in Judaea, nor the accusations which had been laid 
against Him there, could have induced Him to speak as He did in the Sermon on the 
Mount, unless some similar events, such as those which St. Luke has already related, 
had taken place in this province, and within the knowledge of the people. It is quite 
possible that the facts related by Luke do not prove any very great interval between 
the time to which he assigns this discourse and the beginning of the Galilean ministry, 
at which Matthew places it. But they serve at least as a preparation for it, and give 
it just that historical foundation which it needs, while in Matthew it occurs ex 
abrupto, and without any historical framework. The fact that the call of Matthew 
is placed in the first Gospel (9 : 9) after the Sermon on the Mount, which supposes 
this call alreadj' accomplished (Luke 6 : 12 et seq.), would be sufficient, if necessary 
to show that this discourse is detached, in this Gospel, from its true historical 
context. 

1st. Vers. 12-19. Choosing of the Twelve.— Ver. 12.* Luke has already brought 
before us more than once the need of prayer, which so often drew Jesus away into 
solitude (4 : 42, 5 : 6). But the expressions he makes use of here are intended to carry 
special weight. AiavvKrepeveiv, to pass the night in loatching, is a word rarely used 
in Greek, and which in all the N. T. is only found here. The choice of this unusual 
term, as well as the analytical form (the impeif. with the participle), express the per- 
severing energy of this vigil. The term npooevxv rod Qeov, literally, prayer of God, is 
also an unique expression in the N. T. It does not denote any special request, but a 
state of rapt contemplation of God's presence, a prayer arising out of the most pro- 
found communion with Him. The development of the work of Jesus having now 
reached a critical point, during this night He laid it before God, and took counsel 
with Him. The choosing of the twelve apostles was the fruit of this lengthened 
season of prayer ; in that higher light in which Jesus stood, it appeared the only 
measure answering to the exigencies of the present situation. The reading k%E?.Qelv is 
a correction of the Alexandrian purists for hftWev, which, after eyivero, offended the 
Greek ear. 

Vers. 13-1 7a.\ In the execution, as in the choice, of this important measure, 

* & A. B. D. L., e&Meiv avTov instead of tfyXQev. 

t Ver. 14. &. B. D. K. L. A. n. 20 Mnn. Syi sch . It aH( i. read kql before lanuBov. 
&. B. D. L. Syr 8Ch . It nli( J. read kcii before ^lIlktvov. Ver. 15. The same, or nearly 



192 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

Jesus no doubt submitted Himself to divine direction. His numerous disciples spent 
the night not far from the mountain-top to which He withdrew. During this 
lengthened communion, He presented them all, one by one, to His father ; and God's 
finger pointed out those to whom He was to intrust the salvation of the world. 
"When at last all had been made perfectly clear, toward morning He called them to 
Him, and made the selection which had thus been prearranged. The nal, also, indi- 
cates that the title proceeded from Jesus, as well as the commission. Schleiermacher 
thought that this nomination was made simply in reference to the following discourse, 
of which these twelve were to be the official hearers, and that the name apostles (ver. 
13, " whom He also named apostles") might have been given them on some other 
occasion, either previous or subsequent. The similar expression relative to Peter, 
ver. 14, might favor this latter opinion. Nevertheless, it is natural to suppose that 
He entitled them apostles when He first distinguished them from the rest of the dis- 
ciples, just as He gave Simon the surname Peter when He met him for the first time 
(John 1). And if these twelve men had been chosen to attend Jesus officially simply 
on this occasion, they would not be found the same in all the catalogues of apostles. 
The fact of this choice is expressly confirmed by Mark (3 ; 13, 14), and indirectly by 
John (6 : 70) : "Have not I chosen you twelve {k^eke^dfiTjv) ?" The function of the 
apostles has often been reduced to that of simple witnesses. But this very title of 
apostles, or ambassadors, expresses more, comp. 2 Cor. 5 : 20, " We are ambassadors 
for Christ . .. . and we beseech you to be reconciled to God." When Jesus says, 
V I pray for them who shall believe on me through their word," the expression their 
word evidently embraces more than the simple narration of the facts about Jesus and 
His works. The marked prominence which Luke, together with Mark, gives to the 
choosing of the Twelve, is the best refutation of the unfair criticism which affects to 
discover throughout his work indications of a design to depreciate them. 

According to Keim (t. ii. p. 305), the choice of the Twelve must have taken place 
later on, at the time of their first mission, 9:1 et seq. It is then, in fact, that Mat- 
thew gives the catalogue, 10 : 1 et seq. His idea is that Luke imagined this entire 
scene on the mountain in order to refer the choosing of the apostles to as early a 
period as possible, and thus give a double and triple consecration to their authority, 
and that thus far Mark followed him. But Luke, he believes, went much further 
still. Wanting to put some discourse into the mouth of Jesus on this occasion, he 
availed himself for this purpose of part of the Sermon on the Mount, though it was a 
discourse which had nothing in common with the occasion. Mark, however, rejected 
this amplification, but with the serious defect of not being able to assign any adequate 
reason for the choosing of the apostles at this time. Thus far Keim. But, 1. The 
preface to the account of the first apostolic mission in Matthew (10 : 1), " and having 
called to Him the twelve disciples, He gave them ..." does away with the idea 
of their having been chosen just at this time, and implies that this event had already 
taken place. According to Matthew himself, the college of the Twelve is already in 
existence ; Jesus calls them to set them to active service. 2. A scene described in 
such solemn terms as that of Luke (Jesus spending a night in prayer to God), cannot 
be an invention on his part, consistently with the slightest pretensions to good faith. 
3. The narrative of Mark is an indisputable confirmation of Luke's ; for it is inde- 
pendent of it, as appears from the way, so completely his own, in which he defines 
the object of choosing the apostles. 4. We have seen how exactly this measure was 
adapted to that stage of development which the work of Jesus. had now reached. 5. 
Does not rationalistic criticism condemn itself, by attributing to Luke here the entire 

so : Kai before MarOcuov and Ia«w/?ov. Ver. 16. The same, or nearly so : nai before 
lovdav. &. B. D. L., IcwapiuQ instead of loKapicoTT/v, &. B. L. It. omit nai after of. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 193 

invention, of a scene designed to confer the most solemn consecration on the apostolic 
authority of the Twelve, and by asserting elsewhere that this same Luke labors to 
depreciate them (the Tubingen school, and, to a certain extent, Keim himself ; see 
on9:l)? 

The four catalogues of apostles (Matt. 10 : 2 et seq. ; Mark 3 : 16 el seq. ; Luke 6 ; 
and Acts 1 : 13) present three marks of resemblance : 1st. They contain the same 
names, with the exception of Jude the son of James, for whom in Mark Thaddseus is 
substituted, and in Matthew Lebbaeus, surnamed Thaddasus (according to the received 
reading), Thaddseus (according to &. B. ), Lebbaeus (according to D.). 2d. These 
twelve are distributed in the four lists into three groups of four each, and no indi- 
vidual of either of these groups is transferred to another. We may conclude from this 
that the apostolical college consisted of three concentric circles, of which the inner- 
most was in the closest relations with Jesus. Zd. The same three apostles are found 
at the head of each quaternion, Peter, Philip, and James. Besides this quaternary 
division, Matthew and Luke indicate a division into pairs, at least (according to the 
received reading, in Luke, and certainly in Matthew) for the last eight apostles. In 
the Acts, the first four apostles are connected with each other by nai ; the remaining 
eight are grouped in pairs. 

Luke places at the head of them the two brothers, Simon and Andrew, with whom 
Jesus became acquainted while they were with the Forerunner (John 1). At the first 
glance, Jesus had discerned that power of taking the lead, that promptness of view 
and action, which distinguished Peter. He pointed him out at the time by the sur- 
name v]^ m Aramaean tfEPD* Cephas (properly a mass of rock), as he on whom He 
would found the edifice of His Church. If the character of Peter was weak and un- 
stable, he was none the less for that the bold confessor on whose testimony the 
Church was erected in Israel and among the heathen (Acts 2 and 10). There is noth- 
ing in the text to indicate that this surname was given to Peter at this time. The 
aor. uvofiaoe indicates the act simply, without reference to time. The nai merely 
serves to express the identity of the person (ver. 16). Andrew was one of the first 
believers. At the time when Jesus chose the Twelve, he was no doubt appointed at 
the same time as Peter ; but he gradually falls below James and John, to whom he 
appears to have been inferior ; he is placed after them in Mark and in the Acts. The 
order followed by Luke indicates a very primitive source. Andrew is very often 
found associated with Philip (John 6 : 7-9, 12 : 21, 22). In their ordinary life he 
formed the link between the first and the second group, at the head of which was 
Philip. 

The second pair of the first group is formed by the two sons of Zebedee, James 
and John. Mark supplies (3 : 17) a detail respecting them which is full of interest : 
.Jesus had surnamed them sons of thunder. This surname would have been offensive 
had it expressed a fault ; it denoted, therefore, rather the ardent zeal of these two 
brothers in the cause of Jesus, and their exalted affection for His person. This feel- 
ing which burned within their hearts, came forth in sudden flashes like lightning from 
the cloud. John 1 : 42 * contains a delicate trace of the calling of James ; this, 

* Probably it is ver. 41 that is meant. M. Godet, following the usual opinion that 
the unnamed disciple of ver. 40 13 John, the writer of the Gospel, seems to understand 
the next verse as intimating that Andrew found his brother Simon before John 
found his brother James. Al ford's view is, that both disciples (John and Andrew) 
went to seek Simon, but that Andrew found him first,— Translator. 



194: COMMENTARY ON" ST. LTJRE. 

therefore, must have taken place while he was with John the Baptist, immediately 
after that of his brother. James was the first martyr from the number of the apostles 
(Acts 12). This fact is only to be explained by the great influence which he exerted 
after Pentecost. John was the personal friend of Jesus, who doubtless felt Himself 
better understood by him than by any of the others. While the other disciples were 
especially impressed by His miracles, and stored up His moral teaching, John, at- 
tracted rather by His person, treasured up in his heart those sayings in which Jesus 
unfolded His consciousness of Himself. Wieseler has tried to prove that these two 
brothers were first-cousins of Jesus, by Salome, their mother, who would have been 
the sister of the Virgin Mary. Comp. Matt. 27 : 5, 6, Mark 15 : 40, with John 19 : 25. 
But this interpretation of the passage in John is hardly natural. 

The second quaternion, which no doubt comprised natures of a second order, 
contained also two pairs. The first consists, in all three Gospels, of Philip and Bar- 
tholomew. In the Acts, Philip is associated with Thomas. Philip was the fifth be- 
liever (John 1) ; he was originally from Bethsaida, as were also the preceding four. 
John 6 : 5 seems to show that Jesus was on terms of special cordiality with him. The 
name Bartholomew signifies son of Tolmai ; it was therefore only a surname. It has 
long been supposed that the true name of this apostle was ISTathanael. John 21 : 2, 
where Nathanael is named among a string of apostles, proves unquestionably that he 
was one of the Twelve. Since, according to John 1, he had been drawn to Jesus by 
Philip, it is natural that he should be associated with him in the catalogues of the 
apostles. 

Matthew and Thomas form the second pair of the second group in the three Syn. , 
while in the Acts Matthew is associated with Bartholomew. One remarkable circum- 
stance, all the more significant that it might easily pass unperceived, is this, that 
while in Mark and Luke Matthew is placed first of the pair, in our first Gospel he oc- 
cupies the second place. Further, in this Gospel also, the epithet the publican is add- 
ed to his name, which is wanting in the two others. Are not these indications of a 
personal participation, more or less direct, of the Apostle Matthew in the composition 
of the first Gospel ? Having been formerly a toll-collector, Matthew must have been 
more accustomed to the use of the pen than his colleagues. It is not surprising, 
therefore, that he should be the first among them who felt called to put into writing 
the history and instructions of Jesus. The account of his calling implies that he 
possessed unusual energy, decision, and strength of faith. Perhaps it was for that 
reason Jesus saw fit to associate him with Thomas, a man of scruples and doubts. 
The name of the latter signifies a twin. The circumstances of his call are unknown. 
He was doubtless connected with Jesus first of all as a simple disciple, and then his 
serious character attracted the attention of the Master. If the incident 9 : 59, 60 was 
not placed so long after the Sermon on the Mount, we might be tempted with some 
writers to. apply it, to Thomas. 

The third quaternion contains the least striking characters in the number of the 
Twelve. All these men, however, not excepting Judas Iscariot, have had their share 
in the fulfilment of the apostolic task, the transmission of the holy figure of the Christ 
to the Church through all time. The stream of oral tradition was formed by the 
affluents of all these sources together. The last pair comprises here, as in the Acts, 
James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot. But the distribution is different in 
the two other Syn. It has been generally allowed since the fourth century that this 
James is the person so often mentioned, in the Acts and the.Galatians, as the brother 



COMMEJTTABY ON ST. LUKE. 195 

of the Lord, the first head of the flock at Jerusalem. This identity is made out, (1) 
by applying to him the passage Mark 15 : 40, according to which his surname would 
have been the less or the younger (relatively to James the son of Zebedee), and his 
mother would have been a Mary, whom, according to John 19 : 25, we should have 
to regard as a sister (probably sister-in-law) of the mother of Jesus ; (2) by identify- 
ing the name of his father Alphseus with the name Clopas 0£9n = KAcjtoS), which 
was borne, according to Hegesippus, by a brother of Joseph ; (3) by taking the term 
brother in the sense of cousin (of the Lord). But this hypothesis cannot, in our judg- 
ment, be maintained : (1) The word adetyoS, brother, used as it is by the side of fj-nrrjp, 
mother (" the mother and brethren of Jesus"), can only signify brotJier in the proper 
sense. The example often cited, Gen. 13 : 8, when Abraham says to Lot, " We are 
brethren," is not parallel. (2) John says positively (7 : 5) that the brethren of Jesus 
did not believe on Him, and this long after the choice of the Twelve (John 6 : 70). 
This is confirmed by Luke 8 : 19 et seq. ; comp. with Mark 3 : 20-35. One of them 
could not, therefore, be found among His apostles. A comparison of all the passages 
leads us to distinguish, as is generally done at the present day, three Jameses : the 
first, the son of Zebedee (ver. 14) ; the second, the son of Alphseus indicated here, 
whom there is nothing to prevent our identif3 r ing with James the less, the son of 
Clopas and Mary, and regarding him as the first-cousin of Jesus ; the third, the 
brother of the Lord, not a believer before the death of Jesus, but afterward first 
bishop of the flock at Jerusalem. 

The surname Zealot, given to Simon, is probably a translation of the adj. kanna 
(in the Talmud, Tcananit), zealous. If this be correct, this apostle belonged to that 
fanatical party which brought about the ruin of the people, by leading them into 
war against the Romans. This sense corresponds with the epithet Kavavlnj'S, which 
is applied to him in the Byz. reading of Matthew and Mark, confirmed hereby the 
authority of the Sinait. This name is simply the Hebrew term, translated by Luke, 
and Hellenized b}" Matthew and Mark. The reading KavavaloS in some Alex, may 
signify either Canaanite or citizen of Cana. This second etymology is not very 
probable. The first would be more so, if in Matt. 15 : 22 this word, in the sense of 
Canaanite, were not written with an X instead of a K. Luke has therefore given the 
precise meaning of the Aramaean term employed in the document of which he availed 
himself (Keim, t. ii. p. 319). 

The last pair comprises the two Judes. There were in fact two men of this name 
in the apostolic college, although Matthew and Mark mention but one, Jucfas Iscariot. 
This is very clear from John 14; 22 ; "Judas, not Iscariot, sailh to Him." The 
names Lebbseus and Thaddseus, in Matthew and Mark, are therefore surnames, de- 
rived, the former from n?, heart, the latter either from "]J")» «w», or from ^"ftr;, 
potens. The name Thaddai' is of frequent occurrence in the Talmud. These sur- 
names were probably the names by which they were usually designated in the 
Church. The genitive 'laitufiov must, according to usage, signify son of James ; this 
was to distinguish this Judas from the next. With the desire to make this apostle 
also a cousin of Jesus, the phrase has frequently been translated brother of James, 
that is to say, of the son of Alphaeus, mentioned in ver. 15. But there is no instance 
of the genitive being used in this sense. In the 14th verse, Luke himself thought 
it necessary to use the full expression, tov adefydv avrov. And would not the 
two other Syn., who join Lebbseus immediately to James, have indicated this 
relationship ? 



196 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

As there was a town called Kerijoth in Judaea, it is probable that the name Iscariot 
signifies a man of Kerijoth (at the present day Kuriut), toward the northern boundary 
of Judaea. The objections which De Wette has raised against this etymology are 
without force. He proposes, with Lightfoot, the etymology ascara, strangulation. 
Hengstenberg prefers isch scheker, man of falsehood, from which it would follow that 
this surname was given post eventum. These etymologies are all the more untenable, 
that in the fourth Gospel, according to the most probable reading ('lonapiuTov, 6 : 71 
and elsewhere), this surname Iscariot must have been originally that of the father of 
Judas. The character of this man appears to have been cold, reserved, and calcula- 
ting. He was so very reserved that, with the exception perhaps of John, none of 
the disciples guessed his secret hatred. In the coolness of his audacity, he ventured 
to cope with Jesus Himself (John 12 : 4, 5). With what motive did Jesus choose a 
man of this character ? He had spontaneously joined himself, as did so many others, 
to the number of His disciples ; there was therefore a germ of faith in him, and per- 
haps, at the outset, an ardent zeal for the cause of Jesus. But there also existed in 
him, as in all the others, the selfish views and ambitious aspirations which were 
almost inseparable from the form which the Messianic hope had taken, until Jesus 
purified it from this alloy. In the case of Judas, as of all the nthers, it was a ques- 
tion which of the two conflicting principles would prevail in his heart : whether faith, 
and through this the sanctifying power of the spirit of Jesus, or pride, and thereby 
the unbelief which could not fail eventually to result from it. This was, for Judas, 
a question of moral liberty. As for Jesus, He was bound to submit in respect to 
him, as in respect to all the others, to God's plan. On the one hand, He might cer- 
tainly hope, by admitting Judas into the number of His apostles, to succeed in purify- 
ing his heart, while by setting him aside He might irritate him and estrange him for- 
ever. On the other hand, He certainly saw through him sufficiently well to perceive 
the risk He ran in giving him a place in that inner circle which He was about to form 
around His person. We may suppose, therefore, that, during that long night which 
preceded the appointment of the Twelve, this was one of the questions which en- 
gaged His deepest solicitude ; and certainly it was not until the will of His Father 
became clearly manifest that He admitted this man into the rank of the Twelve, not- 
withstanding His presentiment of the heavy cross He was preparing for Himself (John 
-6 : 64 and 71). Still, even Judas fulfilled his apostolic function ; his despairing cry, 
" I have betrayed the innocent blood !" is a testimony which resounds through the 
ages as loudly as the preaching of Peter at Pentecost, or. as the cry of the blood of 
James, the first martyr. The nai, also, after <3s (ver. 16), omitted by some authorities, 
is perhaps taken from the two other Syn. If it is authentic, it is intended to bring 
out more forcibly, through the identity of the person, the contradiction between his 
mission and the course he took. 

Surrounded by the Twelve and the numerous circle of disciples from which He 
had chosen them, Jesus descends from the summit of the mountain. Having reached 
a level place on its slopes, He stops ; the crowd which was waiting for Him toward 
the foot of the mountain, ascends and gathers about Him. TottoS nedivoS, a level 
place on an inclined plane. Thus the alleged contradiction with the expression, the 
mountain, in Matthew disappears (see above). The earrj, He stood still, in opposition 
to having come down, does not in any way denote the attitude of Jesus during the dis- 
course. There is therefore no contradiction between this expression and Matthew's 
having sat down. What are we to say of the discovery of Baur, who thinks that, by 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 197 

substitutingfozTOvi^ come down, ver. 16, for He went up, Matt. 5 : 1, Luke intended to 
degrade the Sermon on the Mount ! * 

Vers. 175-19. f We might make 6;£/ios irljjQoS, the crowd, the multitude, etc., so many 
subjects of eott] : "He stood still, along with the crowd . . ." But it is more 
natural to understand some verb : " And there was with Him the crowd . . ." 
In any case, even if, with the Alex., we omit the nai before eQepairevovro, were healed 
(ver. 18), we could not think of making these subst. nominatives to this last verb ; for 
the crowd of disciples, etc., was not composed of sick people. Three classes of per- 
sons, therefore, surrounded Jesus at this time : occasional hearers (the multitude come 
together from all parts), the permanent disciples (the crowd of disciples), and the 
apostles. The first represent the people in so far as they are called to the kingdom 
of God ; the second, the Church ; the third, the ministry in the Church. The term 
crowd, to denote the second, is not too strong. Did not Jesus take out of them, only 
a little while after, seventy disciples (10 : 1) ? If, at the 18th verse, we read and be- 
fore they were healed, the idea of healing is only accessory, and is added by way of 
parenthesis ; but the prevailing idea is that of gathering together : " Demoniacs also 
were there ; and what is more, they were healed." If the and is omitted, the idea of 
healing alone remains, and we must translate : " And the possessed even were 
healed." With napa?dov we must understand x^P a< ^] Tupov.and 2 idtivo s are comple- 
ments. Yer. 19 describes the mighty working of miraculous powers which took 
place that day. It was a time similar to that which has been described 4 : 40 et sea., 
but to a far higher degree. 'Idro depends on on, and has for its subject dijva/iis. 

2d. Vers. 20-29. The Sermon. — The aim, prevailing thought, and plan of this dis- 
course have been understood in many different ways. The solution of these questions 
is rendered more difficult by the difference between the two accounts given by Mat- 
thew and Luke. As to its aim, Weizsacker regards the Sermon on the Mount as a 
grand proclamation of the kingdom of God, addressed to the whole people ; and it is 
in Matthew's version that he finds the best support for this view of it. He acknowl- 
edges, nevertheless, that the fact stated in the preface (5 : 1, 2 : "He taught them 
[His disciples], saying . . .") is not in harmony with this design. Luke, accord- 
ing to him, has deviated further even than Matthew from its original aim, by modify- 
ing the entire discourse, to make it an address to the disciples alone. Ritschl and 
Holtzmann, on the contrary, think that the discourse was addressed originally to the 
disciples alone, and that Luke's version of it has preserved with greater accuracy its 
real tenor ; only the situation described vers. 17-19 would not, according to Holtz- 
mann, accord with its being addressed to them. Keim reconciles all these different 
views by distinguishing two principal discourses, one addressed to all the people, 
about the time of the Passover feast, of which we have fragments in Matt. 6 : 19-34, 
7 : 7-11, 1-5, 24-27. This inaugural discourse would be on the chief care of human 
life. The second is supposed to have been addressed somewhat later to the disciples 
only, about the time of Pentecost. Matt. 5 is a summary of it. This would be a 
word of welcome addressed by Jesus to His disciples, and an exposition of the new 
law as the fufilment of the old. As to the criticism on the Pharisaical virtues, Matt. 
(5 : 1-18, it is doubtless closely related, both in substance and time, to the preceding 
discourse ; but it did not form part of it. 

* " Die Evangelien," p. 457. 

t Ver. 17. &. B. L. Syr 8ch . read noAvg after ox'aoS. Ver. 18. &. A. B. D. L. Q. 
some Mnn. It. omit nai before eOcpaTtevovTo. . 



198 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

The prevailing idea in Matthew is certainly an exposition of the new law in its 
relations with the old. In Luke, the subject is simply the law of charity, as the 
foundation of the new order of things. Many critics deny that any agreement can 
be found between these two subjects. According to Holtzmann, the 5lh chapter of 
Matthew should be regarded as a separate dissertation which the author of the first 
Gospel introduced into the Sermon ; Keim thinks that Luke, as a disciple of Paul, 
wanted to detach the new morality completely from the old. The anonymous Saxon 
even sets himself to prove that the Sermon on the Mount was transformed by Luke 
into a cutting satire against — Saint Peter ! 

As to the plan of the discourse, many attempts have been made to systematize it. 
Beck : (1) the doctrine of happiness (beatitudes) ; (2) that of righteousness (the cen- 
tral part in Matthew and Luke) ; (3) that of wisdom (conclusion). Oosterzee : (1) the 
salutation of love (Luke, vers. 20-26) ; (2) the commandment of love (vers. 27-38) ; 
(3) the impulse of love (vers. 39-49). The best division, regarding it in this abstract 
way, and taking Matthew as a basis, is certainly that of Gess : (1) the happiness of 
those who are fit to enter into the kingdom (Matt. 5 : 3-12) ; (2) the lofty vocation of 
the disciples (Matt. 5 : 13-16) ; (3) the righteousness, superior to that of the Phari- 
sees, after which they must strive who would enter into the kingdom (5 : 17-6 : 34) ; 
the rocks on which they run a risk of striking (the disposition to judge, intemperate 
proselytizing, being led away by false prophets) ; next, the help against these dan- 
gers, with the conclusion (7 : 1-27). 

The solution of these different questions, as it seems to us, must be sought first of 
all in the position of affairs which gave rise to the Sermon on the Mount. In order 
to see it reproduced, as it were, before our eyes, we have only to institute a com- 
parison. Picture a leader of one of those great social revolutions, for which prep- 
arations seem making in our day. At an appointed hour he presents himself, sur- 
rounded by his principal adherents, at some public place ; the crowd gathers ; he 
communicates his plans to them. He begins by indicating the class of persons to 
which he specially addresses himself : you, poor working people, loaded with suf- 
fering and toil ! and he displays to their view the hopes of the era which is about to 
dawn. Next, he proclaims the new principle which is to govern humanity in the 
future : " The mutual service of mankind ; justice, universal charity !" Lastly, he 
points out the sanction of the law which he proclaims, the peualties that await those 
who violate it, and the rewards of those who faithfully keep it. This is the cari- 
cature ; and by the aid of its exaggerations, we are able to give some account of the 
features of the original model. What, in fact, does the Sermon on the Mount con- 
tain ? Three things : 1st. An indication of the persons to whom Jesus chiefly ad- 
dressed Himself, in order to form the new people (Luke, vers. 20-26 ; Matt. 5 : 1-12) ; 
2d. The proclamation of the fundamental principle of the new society (Luke, vers. 
27 :45 ; Matt. 5 : 13-7 : 12) ; 3d. An announcement of the judgment to which the 
members of the new kingdom of God will have to submit (Luke, vers. 46-49 ; Matt. 
7 : 13-27). In other words : the call, the declaration of principles, and their sanc- 
tion. This is the order of the discourse. , There is nothing artificial about this plan. 
It is not a logical outline forcibly fitted to the discourse ; it is the result of the actual 
position of the work of Jesus, just as we have stated it. The discourse itself explains 
for whom it is intended. Jesus addresses the mass of the people present, as forming 
the circle within which the new order of things is to be realized, and at the same time 
the disciples and apostles, by means of whom this revolution is to be brought about. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LCJKE. 199 

Luke and Matthew, therefore, are not at variance in this matter, either with each 
other or with themselves. As to the fundamental idea of this discourse, see ver. 27. 

First part : vers. 20-26. The Gall. — This solemn invitation describes : (1st.) Those 
who are qualified to become members of the order of things inaugurated by Jesus 
(vers. 20-23) ; (2d.) Their adversaries (vers. 24-26). Matthew begins in the same way ; 
but there are two important differences between him and Luke; 1st. The latter has 
only four beatitudes ; Matthew has eight (not seven or nine, as is often said). 2d. 
To the four beatitudes of Luke are joined four woes, which are wanting in Matthew. 
In Luke's form, Keim sees nothing but an artificial construction. That would not in 
any case be the work of Luke, but of his document. For if there is any one portion 
which from its contents should be assigned to the primitive document (of an Ebionitish 
color), evidently it is this. But the context appears to us decisive in favor of Luke's 
version. This call deals with the conditions which qualify for entering into the 
kingdom. These are clearly indicated in the first four beatitudes of Matthew ; but 
the next four (mercy, purity of heart, a peaceable spirit, and joy under persecution) 
indicate the dispositions by means of which men will remain in the kingdom, and 
consequently their natural place is not in this call. It is only the eighth (Luke's 
fourth) which can belong here, as a transition from the persecuted disciples to the 
persecutors," who are the objects of the following woes. Two of the last four 
beatitudes of Matthew find their place very naturally in the body of the discourse. 
As to the woes, they perfectly agree with the context. After having proclaimed the 
blessedness of those who are qualified to enter, Jesus announces the unhappiness of 
those who are animated by contrary dispositions. Schleiermacher says : a harmless 
addition of Luke's. But, as we have just seen, Luke is here certainly only a copyist. 
A Gentile Christian would not have dreamed of identifying, as Judaism did, the two 
ideas of piety and poverty ; nor, on the other hand, riches and violence. De Wette 
says : the first manifestation of the fixed (Ebionitish) idea of Luke. But see 12 : 32, 
16 : 27, and 18 : 18-30. 

Vers. 20 and 21. " And He lifted up His eyes on His disciples, and said, Blessed 
be ye poor : for yours is the kingdom of God. 21. Blessed are ye that hunger now : 
for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now : for ye shall laugh." The dis- 
ciples are the constant hearers of Jesus, among whom He has just assigned a distinct 
place to His apostles. Luke does not say that Jesus sooke to them alone. He spoke 
to all the people, but regarding them as the representatives of the new order of things 
which He was about to institute. In Matthew, avrovr, ver. 2 (He taught them), com- 
prises both the people and the disciples, ver. 1. This commencement of the Sermon 
on the Mount breathes a sentiment of the deepest joy. In these disciples immedi- 
ately about Him, and in this multitude surrounding Him in orderly ranks, all eager 
to hear the word of God, Jesus beholds the first appearance of the true Israel, the true 
people of the kingdom. He surveys with deep joy this congregation which His 
father has brought together for Him, and begins to speak. It must have been a 
peculiarly solemn moment ; comp. the similar picture, Malt. 5:1,2. 

This assembly was chiefly composed of persons belonging to the poor and suffer- 
ing classes. Jesus knew it ; He recognizes in this a higher will, and in His first 
words He does homage to this divine dispensation. Ilrw^os, which we translate poor, 
comes from ktuccu, to make one's self little, to crouch, and conveys the idea of humilia- 
tion rather than of poverty (rrevijs). UetvuvTeg, the hungry (a word connected with 
irevijS), denotes rather those whom poverty condemns to a life of toil and privation. 



200 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

This second term marks the transition to the third, those who weep, among whom 
must be numbered all classes of persons who are weighed down by the trials of life. 
All those persons who, in ordinary language, are called unhappy, Jesus salutes with 
the epithet p-andpioi, blessed. This word answers to the "HWK> felicitates, of the O. T. 
(Ps. 1 : 1 and elsewhere). The idea is the same as in numerous passages in which the 
poor and despised are spoken of as God's chosen ones, not because poverty and suf- 
fering are in themselves a title to His blessing, but they dispose the soul to those 
meek and lowly dispositions which qualify them to receive it, just as, on the other 
hand, prosperity and riches dispose the heart to be proud and hard. In the very 
composition of this congregation, Jesus sees a proof of this fact of experience so often 
expressed in the O. T. The joy which He feels at this sight arises from the mag- 
nificent promises which He can offer to such hearers. 

The kingdom of God is a state of things in which the will of God reigns supreme. 
This state is realized first of all in the hearts of men, in the heart it may be of a single 
man, but speedily in the hearts of a great number ; and eventually there will come a 
day when, all rebellious elements having been vanquished or taken away, it will be 
found in the hearts of all. It is an order of things, therefore, which, from being in- 
ward and individual, tends to become outward and social, until at length it shall take 
possession of the entire domain of human life, and appear as a distinct epoch in his- 
tory. Since this glorious state as yet exists in a perfect manner only in .a higher 
sphere, it is also called the kingdom of heaven (the ordinary term in Matthew). Luke 
says : is — not shall be — yours ; which denotes partial present possession, and a right 
to perfect future possession. But are men members of this kingdom simply through 
being poor and suffering? The answer to this question is to be found in what pre- 
cedes, and in such passages as Isa. 66 : 2 : "To whom will I look ? saith the Lord. 
To him who is poor (ijy) and of a broken spirit, and who trembles at my word." It 
is to hearts which suffering has broken that Jesus brings the blessings of the king- 
dom. These blessings are primarily spiritual — pardon and holiness. But outward 
blessings cannot fail to follow them ; and this notion is also contained in the idea of 
a kingdom of God, for glory is the crown of grace. The words of Jesus contain, 
therefore, the following succession of ideas : temporal abasement, from which come 
humiliation, and sighing after God ; then spiritual graces, crowned with outward 
blessings. The same connection of ideas explains the beatitudes that follow. Ver. 
21a : temporal poverty (being hungry) leads the soul to the need of God and of His 
grace (Ps. 42 : 1) ; thea out of the satisfaction of this spiritual hunger and thirst 
arises full outward satisfaction (being filled). Ver. 21b : with tears shed over tem- 
poral misfortunes, is easily connected the mourning of the soul for its sins ; the' latter 
draws down the unspeakable consolations of divine love, which eventually raise the 
soul to the triumph of perfect joy. The terms kAclUlv, to sob, yzkq,v, to laugh, cannot 
well be literally rendered here. They denote a grief and ]oy which find outward 
demonstration ; comp. Ps. 126 : 2, " Our mouth was filled with laughter, " and Paul's 
icavx&oQai kv 0£cj, to joy in God (Rom. 5 : 11). The text of Matthew presents here two 
important differences : 1st. He employs the third person instead of the second : 
" Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven ; they that mourn, for 
they shall be comforted," etc. The beatitudes, which in Luke are addressed directly 
to the hearers, are presented here under the form of general maxims and moral sen- 
tences. 2d. In Matthew, these maxims have an exclusively spiritual meaning : " the 
poor in spirit, they who hunger after righteousness. ' ' Here interpreters are divided, 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 201 

Some maintaining that Matthew has spiritualized the words of Jesus ; others (as 
Keim), that Luke, under the influence of a prejudice against riches, has given to 
these blessings a grossly temporal meaning. Two things appear evident to us : (1) 
That the direct form of address in Luke, " Ye," can alone be historically accurate : 
Jesus was speaking to His hearers, not discoursing before them. (2) That this first 
difference has led to the second ; having adopted the third person, and given the 
beatitudes that Maschal form so often found in the didactic parts of the O. T. (Psalms, 
Proverbs), Matthew was obliged to bring out expressly in the text of the discourse 
those moral aims which are inherent in the very persons of the poor whom Jesus 
addresses directly in Luke, and without which these words, in this abstract form, 
would have been somewhat too unqualified. How could one say, without qualifica- 
tion, Blessed are the poor, the hungry ? Temporal sufferings of themselves could not 
be a pledge of salvation. On the other hand, the form, Blessed are ye poor, ye hungry, 
in Luke, renders all such explanation superfluous. For Jesus, when He spoke thus, 
was addressing particular concrete poor and afflicted, whom He already recognized 
as His disciples, as believers, and whom He regarded as the representatives of that 
new people which He was come to install in the earth. That they were such attentive 
hearers sufficiently proved that they were of the number of those in whom temporal 
sufferings had awakened the need of divine consolation, that they belonged to those 
laboring and heavy-laden souls whom He was sent to lead to rest (Matt. 11 : 29), and 
that they hungered, not for material bread only, but for the bread of life, for the word 
of God, for God Himself. The qualification which Matthew was necessarily 
obliged to add, in order to limit the application of the beatitudes, in the general form 
which he gives to them, is in Luke then implied in this ye, which was only addressed 
to poor believers. These two differences between Matthew and Luke are very sig- 
nificant. They seem to me to prove : (1) that the text of Luke is a more, exact report 
of the discourse than Matthew's ; (2) that Matthew's version was originally made 
with a didactic rather than a historical design, and consequently that it formed part 
of a collection of discourses in which the teaching of Jesus was set forth without re- 
gard to the particular circumstances under which He gave it, before it entered into 
the historical framework in which we find it contained at the present day. 

Vers. 22 and 23.* " Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when they 
shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your 
name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. 23. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for 
joy ; for, behold, your reward is great in heaven : for in like manner did their fathers 
unto the prophets." This fourth beatitude is completely accounted for, in Luke, 
by the scenes of violent hostility which had already taken place. It is not so well 
accounted for in Matthew, who places the Sermon on the Mount at the opening of 
the ministry of Jesus. In Matthew, this saying, like the preceding, has the abstract 
form of a moral maxim : " Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' 
sake.; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." But Jesus was certainly not giving 
utterance here to abstract principles of Christian morality ; He spoke as a living 
man to living men. Besides, Matthew himself passes, in the next verse, to the form 
of address adopted by Luke from the commencement. The explanatory adjunct, for 
i^ighteoximess' sake, in Matthew, is to be ascribed to the same cause as the similar 

* Ver. 23. All the Mjj., x a PV^e instead of ^cupere, the reading of T. R. with some 
Mnn. B. D. Q. X. Z. Syr 9ch . It 51 ^., Kara ra avra instead of Kara ravra. 



202 COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 

qualifications in the preceding beatitudes. By the pres. ears, " happy are ye,'' Jesus 
transports His hearers directly into this immediate future. The term atyopi&iv , to 
separate, refers to exclusion from the synagogue (John 9 : 22). The strange expres- 
sion, cast out your name, is explained in very jejune fashion, both by Bleek, to pro- 
nounce the name with disgust, and by De Wette and Meyer, to refuse altogether to 
pronounce it. It refers rather to the expunging of the name from the synagogue roll 
of membership. There is not, on this account, any tautology of the preceding idea. 
To separate, to insult, indicated acts of unpremeditated violence ; to erase the name 
is a permanent measure taken with deliberation and coolness. Uovtjpov, evil, as an 
epitome of every kind of wickedness. In their accounts of this saying, this is the 
only word left which Matthew and Luke have in common. Instead of for the Son 
of man's salce, Matthew says /or my sake. The latter expression denotes attachment 
to the person of Jesus ; the former faith in His Messianic character, as the perfect 
representative of humanity. On this point also Luke appears to me to have pre- 
served the true text of this saying ; it is with His work that Jesus here wishes to con- 
nect the id&t of persecution. This idea of submission to persecution along with, 
and for the sake of, the Messiah, was so foreign to the Jewish point of view that Jesus 
feels He must justify it. The sufferings of the adherents of Jesus will only be a 
continuation of the sufferings of the prophets of Jehovah. This is the great matter 
of consolation that He offers them. They will be, by their very sufferings, raised 
to the rank of the old prophets ; the recompense of the Elijahs and Isaiahs will 
become theirs. The reading Kara nl avra, in the same manner, appears preferable to 
the received reading Kara ravra, in this manner. T<z and avrd have probably been 
made into one word. The imperf. knoiow (treated) indicates habit. The pronoun 
avrdv, their fathers, is dictated by the idea that the disciples belong already to a new 
order of things. The word their serves as a transition to the woes which follow, 
addressed to the heads of the existing order of things. 

Vers. 24-26.* " But woe unto you that are rich ! for ye have received your con- 
solation. 25. Woe unto you that are full ! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that 
laugh now ! for ye shall mourn and weep. 26. Woe unto you when all men shall 
speak well of you ! for so did their fathers to the false prophets." Jesus here con- 
templates in spirit those adversaries who were sharpening against Him only just be- 
fore (ver. 11) the sword of persecution : the rich and powerful at Jerusalem, whose 
emissaries surrounded Him in Galilee. Perhaps at this very moment He perceives 
some of their spies in the outer ranks of the congregation. . Certainly it is not the 
rich, as such, that He curses, any more than He pronounced the poor as such blessed. 
A Nicodemus or a Joseph of Arimathea will be welcomed with open arms as readily 
us the poorest man in Israel. Jesus is dealing here with historical fact, not with 
moral philosophy. He takes the fact as it presented itself to Him at that time. 
Were not the rich and powerful, as a class, already in open opposition to His mis- 
sion ? They were thus excluding themselves from the kingdom of God. The fall of 
Jerusalem fulfilled only too literally the maledictions to which Jesus gave utterance 
on that solemn da3 T . The itT^v, except, only, which we can only render by but (ver. 
24), makes the persons here designated an exception as regards the preceding 

* Yer. 25. 9 Mj j. some Mnn. read wv after e/j.KeT?i7]ryjuevoi. &. B. K. L. S. X. Z. and 
some Mnn. omit the second vy.iv. Ver. 26. 20 Mjj. omit'v/u», which is the reading 
of T. R. with B. A. only. 8 Mjj. 100 Mnn. orait' Trails. The mss. are divided be- 
tween nara ravra (T. R.) and Kara ra avra. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE, 203 

beatitudes. The term rich refers to social position, full to mode of living; the ex- 
pression, you that laugh, describes a personal disposition. All these outward con- 
ditions are considered as associated with an avaricious spirit, with injustice, proud 
self-satisfaction, and a profane levity, which did indeed attach to them at that time. 
It was to the Pharisees and Sadducees more particularly that these threatenings were 
addressed. The word vvv, now, which several mss. read in the first proposition, is a 
faulty imitation of the second, where it is found in all the documents. It is in place 
in the latter ; for the notion of laughing contains something more transient than that 
of being full. The expression airixere, which we have rendered by ye have received, 
siguiftes : you have taken and carried away everything ; all therefore is exhaufted. 
Comp. 16 : 25. The terms hunger, weeping, were literally realized in the great 
national catastrophe which followed soon after this malediction ; but they also con- 
tain an allusion to the privations and sufferings which await, after death, those who 
have found their happiness in this world. In ver. 26 it is more particularly the 
Pharisees and scribes, who were so generally honored in Israel, that Jesus points out 
as conlinuing the work of the false prophets. These four woes would be incompatible 
with the spiritual sense of the terms poor, hungry, etc., in the beatitudes. 

The second part of the discourse : vers. 27-45. TJie New Laiu. — Here we have the 
body of the discourse. Jesus proclaims the supreme law of the new society. The 
difference from Matthew comes out in a yet more striking manner in this part than in 
the preceding. In the first Gospel, the principal idea is the opposition between legal 
righteousness and the new righteousness which Jesus came to establish. He Himself 
announces the text of the discourse in this saying (ver. 20) : "Except your right- 
eousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case 
enter into the kingdom of heaven." The law, in the greater number of its statutes, 
seemed at first sight only to require outward observance. But it was evident to every 
true heart, that by these commandments the God of holiness desired to lead His wor- 
shippers, not to- hypocritical formalism, but to spiritual obedience. The tenth com- 
mandment made this very clear, as far as respected the decalogue, lsraelitish teach- 
ing should have labored to explain the law in this truly moral sense, and to have 
carried the people up from the letter to the spirit, as the prophets had endeavored to 
do. Instead of that, Pharisaism had taken Treasure in multiplying indefinitely legal 
observances, and in regulating them with the minutest exactness, urging the letter of 
the precept to such a degree as sometimes even to make it contradict its spirit. It 
had stifled morality under legalism. Comp. Matt. 15 : 1-20 and 23. In dealing with 
this crying abuse, Jesus breaks into the heart of the letter with a bold hand, in order 
to set free its spirit, and displaying this in all its beauty, casts aside at once the letter, 
which was only its imperfect envelope, a*fd that Pharisaical righteousuess, which 
rested on nothing else than an indefinite amplification of the letter. Thus Jesus finds 
the secret of the abolition of the law in its very fulfilment. Paul understood and de- 
veloped this better than anybody. What, in fact, is Ihe legislator's intention in im- 
posing the letter ? Not the letter, but the spirit. The letter, like the thick calyx 
under the protection of which the flower, with its delicate organs, is formed, was 
only a means of preserving and developing its inward meaning of goodness, until the 
time came when it could bloom freely. This time had come. Jesus on the moun- 
tain proclaims it. And this is why this day is the counterpart of the day of Sinai. 
He opposes the letter of the divine commandment, understood as letter, to the spirit 
contained in it, and develops this contrast, Matt. 5, in a series of antitheses so strik- 



204 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

ing that it is impossible to doubt either their authenticity or that they formed the 
real substance, the centre of the Sermon on the Mount. Holtzmann will never sue- ' 
ceed in persuading any one to the contrary ; his entire critical hypothesis as to the 
relations of the Syn. will crumble away sooner than this conviction. The connec- 
tion of the discourse in Matthew is this : 1. Jesus discloses wherein the Pharisaical 
righteousness fails, its want of inward truth (vers. 13-48). 2. He judges, by this 
law, the three positive manifestations of this boasted righteousness : almsgiving, 
prayer, and fasting (6 : 1-18). 3. He attacks -two of the most characteristic sins of 
Pharisaism : covetousness and censoriousness (6 : 19-34 ; 7 : 1-5). 4. Lastly there 
come various particular precepts on prayer, conversion, false religious teaching, etc. 
(7 : 6-20). Bat between these precepts it is no longer possible to establish a perfectly 
natural connection. Such is the body of the Sermon in Matthew : at the commence- 
ment, an unbroken chain of thought ; then a connection which becomes slighter and 
slighter, until it ceases altogether, and the discourse becomes a simple collection of 
detached sayings. But the fundamental idea is still the opposition between the for- 
malism of the ancient righteousness and the spirituality of the new. 

In Luke also, the subject of the discourse is the perfect law of the new order of 
things.; but this law is exhibited, not under its abstract and polemical relation of 
spirituality, but under its concrete and positive form of charity. The plan of this 
part of the discourse, in Luke, is as follows : 1st. Jesus describes the practical mani- 
festations of the new principle (vers. 27-30) ; then, 2d. He gives concise expression 
to it (ver. 31) ; dd. He indicates the distinctive characteristics of charity, by contrast- 
ing this virtue with certain natural analogous sentiments (vers. 32-35&) ; 4th. He sets 
forth its model and source (vers. 35& and 36) ; 5th. Lastly, He exhibits this gratu- 
itous, disinterested love as the principle of all sound judgment and salutary religious 
teaching, contrasting in this respect the new ministry, which He is establishing in the 
earth in the presence of His disciples, with the old, which, as embodied in the Phari- 
sees, is vanishing away (vers. 37-45). 

At the first glance there seems little or nothing in common between this body of the 
discourse and that which, as we have just seen, Matthew gives us. We can even 
understand, to a certain extent, the odd notion of Schleiermacher, that these two 
versions emanated from two hearers, of whom one was more favorably situated for 
hearing than the other ! The difference, however, between these two versions may 
be accounted for by connecting the fully -developed subject in Luke with the subject 
of the last two of the six antitheses, by which Jesus describes (Matt. 5) the contrast 
between legal righteousness and true righteousness. Jesus attacks, vers. 38-48, the 
Pharisaical commentary on these two precepts of the law : an eye for an eye . . . 
and, thou shalt love thy neighbor as tliyself. This commentary, by applying the lex 
talionis, which had only been given as a rule for the judges of Israel, to private life, 
and by deducing from the word neighbor this consequence : therefore thou mayest 
hate him who is not thy neighbor, that is to say, the foreigner, or thine enemy, had 
entirely falsified the meaning of the law on these two points. In opposition to these 
caricatures, Jesus sets forth, in Matthew, the inexhaustible and perfect grace of 
charity, as exhibited to man in the example of his heavenly Benefactor ; then He pro- 
ceeds to identify this charity in man with the divine perfection itself : " Be ye per- 
fect [through charity], as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Now it is just 
at this point that Luke begins to appropriate the central part of the discourse. These 
last two antitheses, which terminate in Matthew in the lofty thought (ver. 48) of man 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LtJKE. 20 O 

being elevated by love to the perfection of God, furnish Luke with the leading idea 
of the discourse as he presents it — namely, charity as the* law of the new life. Its 
theme is in this way modified in form, but it is not altered in substance. For if, as 
St. Paul says, Rom. 13 : 10, " charity is the fulfilling of the law ; " if perfect 
spirituality, complete likeness to God, consists in charity ; the fundamental agree- 
ment between these two forms of the Sermon on the Mount is evident. Only Luke 
has deemed it advisable to omit all that specially referred to the ancient law and the 
comments of the Pharisees, and to preserve only that which has a universal human 
bearing, the opposition between charity and than natural selfishness of the human 
heart. 

The two accounts being thus related, it follows, that as regards the original 
structure of the discourse, in so far as this was determined by opposition to Phari- 
saism, Matthew has preserved it more completely than Luke. But though this is so, 
Matthew's discourse still contains many details not originally belonging to it, which 
Luke has very properly assigned to entirely different places in other parts of his 
narrative. We find here once more the two writers following their respective bent : 
Matthew, having a didactic aim, exhibits in a general manner the teaching of Jesus 
on the righteousness of the kingdom, by including in this outline many sayings 
spoken on other occasions, but bearing on the same subject ; Luke, writing as a 
historian, confines himself more strictly to the actual words which Jesus uttered at 
this time. Thus each of them has his own kind of superiority over the other. 

1st. The manifestations of charity : vers. 27-30. To describe the manifestations 
of this new principle, which is henceforth to sway the world, was the most popular 
and effectual way of introducing it into the consciences of his hearers. Jesus de- 
scribes, first of all, charity in its active form (vers. 27 and 28) ; then in its passive 
form of endurance (vers. 29 and 30). 

Vers. 27, 28.* " But 1 say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to 
them which hate you. 28. Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which 
despitefully use you." There is a break in the connection between ver. 26 and ver. 
27. De Wette and Meyer think that the link is to be found in this thought under- 
stood : " Notwithstanding these curses which I pronounce upon the rich, your per- 
secutors, I command you not to hate, but to love them." But in the verses that fol- 
low, it is not the rich particularly that are represented as the enemies whom His dis- 
ciples should love. The precept of love to enemies is given in the most general 
manner. Rather is it the new law which Jesus announces here, as in Matthew. The 
link of connection with what goes before is this : In the midst of this hatred of 
which you will be the objects (ver. 22), it will be your duty to realize in the world 
the perfect law which I to-day proclaim to you. Tholuck, in his " Explanation of 
the Sermon on the Mount" (p. 498), takes exception to Luke for giving these precepts 
a place here, where they have no connection ; but he thus shows that he has failed 
to understand the structure of this discourse in our Gospel, as we have exhibited it. 
In this form of expression : But I say unto you which hear, there is an echo as it 
were of the antithesis of Matthew : " Ye have heard . . . But I say unto you." 
By this expression, you which hear, Jesus opposes the actual hearers surrounding 
Him to those imaginary hearers to whom the preceding woes were addressed. We 

* Ver. 28. The mss. are divided between v/nas and vutv. All the Mjj. omit Kat be- 
fore npooevxeoQe, which is the reading of T. R. with merely some Mnn. The mss. are 
divided between Kept and vnep. 



206 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

must conceive of the words, ver. 27 and ver. 28, as having been pronounced with 
some kind of enthusiasm. These precepts overflow with love. You have only to 
meet every manifestation of hatred with a fresh manifestation of love. Love ! Love ! 
You can never love too much ! The term love denotes the essence of the new 
principle. Then come its manifestations : first, in acts (do good); then in words 
(bless) ; lastly, the highest manifestation, which is at once act and word (pray for). 
These manifestations of love correspond with the exhibitions of hatred by which they 
are called forth : £xQp a , hatred, the inward feeling ; ficaslv, to hold in abhorrence, the 
acts ; Karapaadai, to curse, the words. 'T&irrjpeu&iv (probably from eni and aipeoQai, to 
rise against, to thwart) corresponds with intercession. Jesus therefore here requires 
more than that which to natural selfishness appears the highest virtue : not to render 
evil for evil. He demands from His disciples, according to the expression of St. 
Paul (Rom. 12 : 21), that they shall overcome evil with good ; Jesus could not yet re- 
veal the source whence His disciples were to derive this entirely new passion, this 
divine charity which displays its riches of forgiveness and salvation toward a rebel- 
lious world at enmity with God (Rom. 5 : 8-10). In the parallel passage in Matthew, 
the two intervening propositions have probably been transferred from Luke. 

Vers. 29 and 30.* Patient Charity. — " And unto him that smiteth thee on the one 
cheek, offer also the other ; and him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to take 
thy coat also. 30. Give to every man that asketh of thee ; and of him that taketh 
away thy goods ask them not again." — Paul also regards (lanpoQv/Lielv, to be long-suf- 
fering, as on a par with xPV^^eaQai, to do good (Charity suflereth long, and is kind. 
1 Cor. 13 : 4). The natural heart thinks it does a great deal when it respects a 
neighbor's rights ; it does not rise to the higher idea of sacrificing its own. Jesus 
here describes a charity which seems to ignore its own rights, and knows no bounds 
to its self-sacrifice. He exhibits this sublime ideal in actual instances (lit. in the most 
concrete traits) and under the most paradoxical forms. In order to explain these 
difficult words, Olshausen maintained that they only applied to the members of the 
kingdom of God among themselves, and not to the relations of Christians with the 
world. But would Jesus have entertained the supposition of strikers and thieves- 
among His own people ? Again, it has been said that these precepts expressed noth- 
ing more than an emphatic condemnation of revenge (Calvin), that they were hyper- 
boles (Zwingle), a portrayal of the general disposition which the Christian is to ex- 
emplify in each individual case, according as regard for God's glory and his neigh- 
bor's salvation may permit (Tholuck) ; which comes to St. Augustine's idea, that 
these precepts concern the prcaparatio cordis rather than the opus quod in apertofit. 
Without denying that there is some truth in all these explanation?, we think that they 
do not altogether grasp the idea. Jesus means that, as far as itself is concerned, 
charity knows no limits to its self-denial. If, therefore, it ever puts a stop to its 
concessions, it is in no way because it feels its patience exhausted ; true charity is 
infinite as God Himself, whose essence it is. Its limit, if it has any, is not that which 
its rights draw around it ; it is a limit like that which the beautiful defines for itself, 
proceeding from within. It is in charity that the disciple of Jesus yields, when he 
yields ; it is in charity also that he resists, when he resists. Charity has no other 
limit than Charity itself, that is to say, it is boundless. liayuv does not properly 
mean, as it is ordinarily translated, the cheek (rcapeid), but the jaw ; the blow given, 

* Ver. 29. &. D., e*S rr/v for em ttjv. Ver, 30, &. B, omit ru after iravn. 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 207 

therefore, is not a slap, but a heavy blow. Consequently it is an act of violence, 
rather than of contempt, that is meant. The disciple who has coinpletety sacrificed 
his person, naturally will not refuse his clothes. As l/xdriou denotes the upper gar- 
ment, and x LT ti v the under garment or tunic which is worn next the skin, it would 
seem that here also hfis an act of violence that is meant, a theft perpetrated by main 
force ; the thief first snatches away the upper garment. Matthew presents the re- 
verse order: "He who would take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also." 
This is because with him it is an affair of legal process (if any man will sue thee at the 
law). The creditor begins by possessing himself of the coat, which is less valuable ; 
then, if he is not sufficiently compensated, he claims the uuder garment. This ju- 
ridical form stands connected in Matthew with the article of the Mosaic code which 
Jesus has just cited : an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Matthew, therefore, ap- 
pears to have preserved the original words of this passage. But is it possible to con- 
ceive, that if Luke had had Matthew's writing before him, or the document made 
use of by the author of this Gospel, he would have substituted, on his own authority, 
a totally different thought from that of his predecessor ? 

Ver. 30. Another form of the same thought. A Christian, so far as he is con- 
cerned, would neither refuse anything nor claim anything back. It', therefore, he 
does either one or the other, it is always out of charity. This sentiment regulates his 
refusals as well as his gifts, the maintenance as well as the sacrifice of his rights. 

2d. After having described the applications of the new principle, Jesus gives a 
formal enunciation of it, ver. 31 : " And as ye would that men should do to you, do 
ye also to them likewise." The natural heart says, indeed, with the Rabbins: 
" What is disagreeable to thyself, do not do to thy neighbor." But charity says, by 
the mouth of Jesus : " Whatsoever thou desirest for thyself, that do to thy neighbor." 
Treat thy neighbor in everything as thine other self. It is obvious that Jesus only 
means desires that are reasonable and really salutary. His disciples are regarded as 
unable to form any others for themselves. Kal, and, may be rendered here by, in a 
loord. In Matthew this precept is found in chap. 7, toward the end of the discourse, 
between an exhortation to prayer and a call to conversion, consequently without any 
natural connection with what precedes and follows. Notwithstanding this, Tholuck 
prefers the position which it has in Matthew. He regards this saying as a summary 
of the whole discourse (p. 498). But is it not manifest that it is more naturally con- 
nected with a series of precepts on charity, than with an exhortation to prayer? 

Sd. The distinguishing characteristic of charity, disinterestedness : vers. 32-35a.* 
" And if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye ? For sinners also love 
those that love them. 33. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what 
thank have ye ? For sinners also do even the same. 34. And if ye lend to those of 
whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye ? For sinners also lend to sinners, to 
receive the same service. 3oa. But love your enemies, and do them good, and lend, 
without hoping for anything again. " Human love seeks an object which is congenial 
to itself, and from which, in case of need, it may obtain some return. There is 
always somewhat of self-interest in it. The new love which Jesus proclaims will be 
completely gratuitous and disinterested. For this reason it will be able to embrace 
even an object entirely opposed to its own nature. Xdpic : the favor which comes 

* Ver. 33. &* B. add yap between nai and eav. $. B. A. omit yap after mi. Ver. 
34. Instead of airoAa3eiv, which is the reading of T. R. with 14 Mjj., & B. L. Z. 
read /.afciv. &. B, L. Z. omit yap, Ver. 35, 5*. Z. TI. Syr., fnjthva instead of ^ev. 



208 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

from God ; in Matthew : TivafitaBdv, what matter of recompense? 'AiroXaupaveiv ra laa 
may signify, to withdraw the capital lent, or indeed, to receive some day the same 
service. The preposition and -would favor the first sense. But the Alex, reading 
renders this prep, doubtful. The covert selfishness of this conduct comes out 
better in the second sense, only to lend to those who, it is noped, will lend in 
their turn. It is a shrewd calculation, selfishness in instinctive accord with the 
law of retaliation, utilitarianism coming forward to reap the fruits of moral- 
ity. What fine irony there is in this picture ! What a criticism on natural 
kindness ! The new principle of wholly disinterested charity comes out very clearly 
on this dark background of ordinary benevolence. This paradoxical form which 
Jesus gives His precepts effectually prevents all attempts of a relaxed morality to 
weaken them. U2.r/v (ver. 35) : " This false love cast aside ; for you, my disciples, 
there only remains this." ' ArteAm^eiv means properly, to despair. Mej^er would 
apply this sense here : " not despairing of divine remuneration in the dispensation to 
come." But how can the object of the verb fujdev, nothing, be harmonized with this 
meaning and the antithesis in ver. 34 ? The sense which the Syriac translation gives, 
reading probably with some mss. fx7)6eva,no one, " causing no one to despair by a 
refusal," is grammatically inadmissible. The only alternative is to give the dro'va. 
aireATTi^ELv the sense which this prep, already has in anolafielv, hoping for nothing in 
return from him who asks of you. 

4th. The model and source of the charity which Jesus has just depicted : vers. "Sob 
and 36.* ^ And your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the 
Highest : for He is kind to the unthankful and to the evil. 36. Be ye therefore 
merciful, as your Father also is merciful." Having referred to the love which His 
disciples are to surpass, that of man by nature a sinner, Jesus shows them what they 
must aspire to reach — that divine love which is the source of all gratuitous and 
disinterested love. The promise of a reward is no contradiction to the perfect dis- 
interestedness which Jesus has just made the essential characteristic of love. And, 
in fact, the reward is not a payment of a nature foreign to the feeling rewarded, the 
prize of merit ; it is the feeling itself brought to perfection, the full participation 
in the life and glory of God, who is love ! Kal, and in fact. This disinterested love, 
whereby we become like God, raises us to the glorious condition of His sons and 
heirs, like Jesus Himself. The seventh beatitude in Matthew, " Blessed are the 
peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God," is probably a general 
maxim taken from this saying. If the ungrateful and the wicked are the object 
of divine love, it is because this love is compassionate (oucripfiwv, ver. 36). In the 
wicked man God sees the unhappy man. Matt. 5 : 45 gives this same idea in an en- 
tirely different form : ',' For He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, 
and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." How could these two forms have 
been taken from the same document ? If Luke had known this fine saying in Mat- 
thew, would he have suppressed it ? Matthew concludes this train of thought by a 
general maxim similar to that in Luke 5:3-6: "Be ye therefore perfect, as your 
Father in heaven is perfect." These two different forms correspond exactly with 
the difference in the body of the discourse in the two evangelists. Matthew speaks 
of the inward righteousness, the perfection (to which one attains through charity) ; 
Luke, of charity (the essential element of perfection ; comp. Col. 3 : 14). 

* Ver, 36. 5*. B. D. L. Z. #?!«**« omit ow. &. B. ty. Z. omit kcu, 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 209 

oth. Love, the principle of all beneficent moral action on the world : vers. 37-45. — 
The disciples of Jesus are not only called to practise what is good themselves ; they 
are charged to make it prevail in the earth. They are, as Jesus says in Matthew, 
immediately after the beatitudes, the light of the world, the salt of tiie earth. Now they 
cao only exercise this salutary influence through love, which manifests itself in this 
sphere also (comp. ver. 27), either by what it refrains from (vers. 37-42), or by 
action (vers. 43-45). Above all things, love refrains from judging. 

Vers. 37 and 38.* " And judge not, and ye shall not be judged ; condemn not, 
and ye shall not be condemned ; forgive, and ye shall be forgiven. 38. Give, and it 
shall be given unto you ; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and 
running over, shall men give into your bosom ; for with the same measure that ye 
mete withal, it shall be measured to you again." There is no reference here to the 
pardon of personal offences ; the reference is to charity, which, in a general way, 
refuses to judge. Jesus evidently has in view in this passage the judgment which 
the scribes and Pharisees assumed the right to exercise in Israel, and which their 
harshness and arrogance rendered more injurious than useful, as was seen in the 
effect it produced on the publicans and other such persons (5 : 30, 15 : 28-30). Kal. 
indicates the transition to a new but analogous subject : And further. Kplveiv, to 
judge, is not equivalent to condemn ; it means generally to set one's self up as a judge 
of the moral worth of another. But since, wherever this disposition prevails, judg* 
ment is usually exercised in an unkindly spirit, the word is certainly employed here 
in an unfavorable sense. It is strengthened by the following term : condemn, to 
condemn pitilessly, and without taking into account any reasons for forbearance. 
'knolveiv, to absolve, does not refer, therefore, to the pardon of a personal offence ; it 
is the anxiety of love to find a neighbor innocent rather than guilty, to excuse rather 
than to condemn. The Lord does not forbid all moral judgments on the conduct of 
our neighbor ; this would contradict many other passages, for example, 1 Cor. 5 : 12 : 
" Do not ye judge them that are within ?" The true judgment, inspired by love, is im- 
plied in ver. 42. What Jesus desires to banish from the society of His disciples is the 
judging spirit, the tendency to place our faculty of moral appreciation at the service 
of natural malignity, or more simply still, judging for the pleasure of judging. The 
reward promised : not to be judged or condemned, to be sent away absolved, may refer 
either to this world or the other, to the conduct of men or of God. The latter is the 
more natural meaning, it enforces itself in the next precept. It is probably from here 
that the fifth beatitude in Matthew has been taken : " Blessed are the merciful ; for 
they shall obtain mercy." 

With a disposition to absolve those that are accused is naturally connected that 
of giving, that is to say, of rendering service to all, even to the greatest sinners. 
This idea is introduced here only as an accessory to the other. There is some feel- 
ing in these successive imperatives, and a remarkable affluence of expression in the 
promise. Some one has said : " Give with a full hand to God, and He will give 
with a full hand to you." The idea of this boundless liberality of God is forcibly 
expressed by the accumulation .of epithets. The measure, to which Jesus alludes, 
is one for solids {pressed, shaken together) ; the epithet, running over, is not at all op- 

* Ver. 37. A. C. A. It* 11 *., iva w instead of kou ov utj. Ver. 38. 8. B. D. L. Z., 

a yap fierpo instead of ru yap avrcj fxerpu w, which is the reading of T. R with all the 
other mss. 



210 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

posed to this. The expression, into your bosom, refers to the form of the oriental 
garment, which allows of things being heaped together in the large pocket-shaped 
fold above the girdle (Ruth 3 : 15). The plur. tiuoovaiv, they will give corresponds 
to the French indef. pron. on ; it denotes the instruments of divine munificence, 
whoever they may be (12 : 20, 48). This precept is found, in very nearly the same 
terms, in Matt., 7:1 et seq., immediately following an- exhortation to confidence 
in Providence, and before an invitation to prayer — in a context, therefore, with 
which it has no connection. In Luke, on the contrary, all is closely connected. 

Vers. 39 and 40. " And He spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the 
blind ? Shall they not both fall into the ditch ? 40, The disciple is not above his 
master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master." Meyer, Bleek, and 
Holtzmann can see no natural connection between this little parable and the preced- 
ing precept. The form, He said to them also, seems of itself to indicate an interrup- 
tion, and to betray the interpolation of a passage foreign to the original context. Is 
not, however, the figure of a blind man leading another man (ver. 39) evidently con- 
nected with that of the man who, while he has a beam in his own eye, wants to take 
a straw out of his brother's eye (ver. 41) ? And who can fail to perceive the connec- 
tion between the idea contained in this last illustration and the precept which 
precedes (vers. 37, 38) respecting judgments ? A man's presuming to correct his 
neighbor, without correcting himself— is not this altogether characteristic of that 
mania for judging others which Jesus has just forbidden ? The whole passage (vers. 
37-42) is just, therefore, a piece of consecutive instruction respecting judgments. 
Jesus continues the contrast between that normal and salutary judgment which He 
expects from His disciples, in regard to the world, based partly on the love of one's 
neighbor, and partly on unsparing judgment of one's self, and that injurious judgment 
which the Pharisees, severe toward others, and altogether infatuated with themselves, 
were exercising in the midst of Jewish society. The sole result of the ministry of 
the Pharisees was to fit their disciples for the same perdition as themselves ! Jesus 
prays His disciples not to repeat such achievements in the order of things which He 
is about to establish. In Matt? 15 : 14 and 23 : 15, 16 we have some precisely similar 
words addressed to the Pharisees. We are not mistaken, therefore, in our applica- 
tion of this figure. As to the phrase, And He saith to them also (ver. 39), comp. 6 : 5. 
This break in the discourse represents a moment's pause to collect His thoughts. 
Jesus seeks for an illustration that will impress His hearers with the deplorable con- 
sequences of passing judgment on others, when it is done after the fashion of the 
Pharisees. 'OS^yelv, to point out the way, combines the two notions of correction and 
instruction. The disciple, in so far as he is a disciple, not being able to excel his 
master (ver. 40), it follows that the disciple of a Pharisee will not be able at best to 
do more than equal his master ; that is to say, fall into the same ditch with him. 
Yer. 40 justifies this idea. Here we see what will happen to the whole people, if 
they remain under the direction of the Pharisees. The further they advance in the 
school of such masters, the nearer they will come ... to perdition. The pro- 
verbial saying, ver. 40a, is used in Matt. 10 : 24, 25 and John 15 : 20 in this sense : 
The servants of Jesus must not expect to be treated better than their Master. In 
Luke 22 : 27 and John 13 : 16 it is applied to the humility which befits the servant of 
such a Master. It is obvious that Jesus made various applications of these general 
maxims. Whatever, then, modern criticism may think, the context of Luke is un- 
exceptionable. How can Weizsacker so disregard this connection as actually to 



COkMENTAltY OX ST. LUKE. 211 

make ver. 39 the commencement of a new part, " the second section of the dis- 
course !" (p. 153). 

Vers. 41 and 42. " And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, 
but perCeivest not the beam that is in thine own eye ? 42. Either how canst thou say 
to thy brother. Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thy- 
self beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye ? Thou hypocrite, cast out first 
the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote 
that is in thy brother's eye." In order to be useful in correcting another, a man 
must begin by correcting himself. Love, when sincere, never acts otherwise. Be- 
yond the limits of this restraint, all judgment is the fruit of presumption and blind- 
ness. Such was the judgment of the Pharisees. The mote, the bit of straw which 
has slipped into the eye, represents a defect of secondary importance. A beam in the 
eye is a ludicrous image which ridicule uses to describe a ridiculous proceeding — a 
man's assuming, as the Pharisee did, to direct the moral education of his less vicious 
neighbor, when he was himself saturated with avarice, pride, and other odious vices. 
Such a man is rightly termed a hypocrite ; for if it was hatred of evil that inspired 
his judgment, would he not begin by showing this feeling in an unsparing judgment 
of himself? Ordinarily, diaftTcefeiS is understood in this sense : Thou wilt be able 
to think to, to see to . . . But can (SXeneiv, to see, be used in this connection in 
an abstract sense ? The connection between eK(3a?iXe, take away, and diafileipetS, thou 
shalt see, should suffice to prove the contrary : " Take away the beam which takes 
away thy sight, and then thou shalt see clearly to . . ." The verb diafoe-treiv, to 
see through, to see distinctly, is only found in this passage, and in its parallel in Mat- 
thew, in all the K. T. This has been held to prove that the two evangelists both 
employed the same Greek document. But characteristic expressions such as these 
doubtless originated in the first rendering of the oral tradition into the Greek tongue ; 
precepts then took a fixed form, certain features of which were preserved in the 
preaching, and thence passed into our Syn. 

In vers. 43-45, the idea of teaching, which is perceptible in ver. 40, takes the 
place altogether of the idea of judging, with which it is closely connected. 

Vers. 43-45.* " For a good tree biingeth not forth corrupt fruit ; neither doth a 
corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 44. For every tree is known by his own fruit : 
for of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble-bush gather they grapes." 
In order that our words may have a good influence on our neighbor, we must be good 
ourselves. In this passage, therefore, the fruits of the tree are neither the moral 
conduct of the individual who teaches, nor his doctrines. They are the results of 
his labor in others. In vain will a proud man preach humility, or a selfish man 
charity ; the injurious influence of example will paralyze the efforts of their words. 
The corrupt tree (oapivov) is a tree infected with canker, whose juices are incapable of 
producing palatable fruit. The connection between vers. 43 and 4Aa is this : " This 
principle is so true, that every one, without hesitation, infers the nature of a tree 
from its fruits." In Palestine there are often seen, behind hedges of thorns and 
brambles, fig-trees completely garlanded with the climbing tendrils of vine branches.! 

* Ver. 43. 2*. B. L. Z. and several Mnn. add italiv after ovde. Ver. 45. 1*. B. 
omit avrov after napdiaS. &. B. D. L. omit avQpuiroS after novqaoS. &. B. D. L. Z. 
omit the words Brjaavpov ttjS napdias avrov. 

f Konrad Furrer, " die Bedeutung der biblischen Geographie fur die bibl. Exe- 
gese," p. 34. 



212 • COMMENTAKY OK ST. LUKE. 

Ver. 45 gives expression to the general principle on which the whole of the preceding 
rests. A man's word is the most direct communication of his being. If a man de- 
sires to reform others by his word, he must reform himself ; then his word will change 
the world. Jesus Himself succeeded in depositing a germ of goodness in the world 
by His word alone, because He was a perfectly good man. It is for His disciples to 
continue His work by this method, which is the antipodes of that of the Pharisees. 
An analogous passage is found in Matthew, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount 
(7 : 15-20). There Jesus is exhorting His hearers to beware of false prophets, who 
betray their real character by their evil fruits. These false prophets may indeed be, 
in this precept, as in that of Luke, the Pharisees (comp. our ver. 26). But their 
fruits are certainly, in Matthew, their moral conduct, their pride, avarice, and hypoc- 
risy, and not, as in Luke, the effects produced by their ministry. On the other hand, 
we find a passage in Matthew (12 : 33-35) still more like ours. As it belongs to a 
warning against blaspheming the Holy Ghost, the fruits of the tree are evidently, as 
in Luke, the words themselves, in so far as they are good or bad in their nature and 
in their effect on those who receive them. From this, is it not evident that this pas- 
sage is the true parallel to ours, and that the passage which Matthew has introduced 
into the Sermon on the Mount is an importation, occasioned probably by the employ- 
ment of the same image (that of the trees and their fruits) in both ? Thus Jesus has 
risen by degrees from the conditions of the Christian life (the beatitudes) to the life 
itself ; first of all to its principle, then to its action on the world. He has made His 
renewed disciples instruments for the renewal of humanity. It now only remains 
for Him to bring this inaugural discourse to a close. 

Third part of the discourse : vers. 46-49. The Sanction. — Here we have the con- 
clusion, and, so to speak, the peroration of the discourse. The Lord enjoins His dis- 
ciples, for the sake of their own welfare, to put in practice the new principle of con- 
duct which He has just laid down. 

Ver. 46. " And why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say." 
This saying proves that Jesus was already recognized as Lord by a large part of 
this multitude, but that even then He would have been glad to find in many of those 
who saluted Him by this title a more scrupulous fidelity to the law of charity. This 
warning is connected, doubtless, with the preceding context, by this idea : " Do not 
be guilty, in the dispensation now commencing, of the same hypocrisy as the scribes 
and Pharisees have been guilty of in that which is coming to an end ; they render 
homage to Jehovah, and, at the same time, perpetually transgress His law. Do not 
deal with my word in this way." The same idea is found in Matthew, at the cor- 
responding place in the Sermon on the Mount (7 : 21 et seq.\ but under that abstract 
and sententious form already observed in the Beatitudes : " Not every one that saith 
unto me : Lord, Lord," etc. In this passage in Matthew ^ Jesus expressly claims to 
be the Messiah and Supreme Judge. The same idea is expressed in the Lord, Lord, 
of Luke. 

Vers. 47-49.* " Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth 
them, I will show you to whom he is like : 48. He is like a man which built an 
house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock : and when the flood arose, 
the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it ; for it was 

* Ver. 48. &. B. L. Z., diaro nalu$ oinodofirjoBai avrijv instead of TeQe/ueTuoro yap s-kl 
Tijv rrerpav, which is the reading of T. R. with all the other authorities. Ver. 
49. C. and some Mnn. , olko6o[iovtl instead of otnodojutjoavTi. 



COMMEKTAKY OK ST. LUKE. 213 

founded upon a rock. 49. But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that, 
without a foundation, built a house upon the earth ; against which the stream 
did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell ; and the ruin of that house was 
great." The two evangelists coincide in this closing illustration. On the 
shelving lands which surround the Lake of Gennesareth, there are some 
hills on which the rock is covered with only a thin layer of earth (/?, Luke) or 
sand (afifios, Matthew). A prudent man digs through this movable soil, 
digs deep down (eonaipe teal epdQvve), even into the rock, upon and in which (km with 
the accusative) he lays the foundation. Luke only mentions one cause of destruc- 
tion, the waterspout {^fifivpa), that breaks on the summit of the mountain and 
creates the torrents which carry away the layer of earth and sand, and with it the 
building that is not founded on the rock. Matthew adds the hurricane (avefxot) that 
ordinarily accompanies these great atmospheric disturbances, and overthrows the 
building which the torrent undermines. Though the differences between these two 
descriptions in Matthew and Luke are for the most part insignificant, they are too 
numerous to suppose that both could have been taken from the same document. To 
build on the earth is to admit the Lord's will merely into the understanding, that 
most superficial and impersonal part of a man's self, while closing the conscience 
against Him, and withholding the acquiescence of the will, which is the really per- 
sonal element within us. The trial of our spiritual building is brought about by 
temptation, persecution, and, last of all, by judgment. Its overthrow is accom- 
plished by unbelief here below, and by condemnation from above. The Alex, read- 
ing, because it had been well built (ver. 48), is to be preferred to that of the T R for it 
was founded on a rock, which is taken from Matthew. A single lost soul is a great 
ruin in the eyes of God. Jesus, in closing his discourse, leaves His hearers under 
the impression of this solemn thought. Each of them, while listening to this last 
word, might think that he heard the crash of the falling edifice, and say within 
himself : This disaster will, be mine if I prove hypocritical or inconsistent. 

> The Sermon on the Mount, therefore, as Weizsacker has clearlv seen is • th^ 
inauguration of the new law. The order of the discourse, ^rdfng (o the two'doc! 

^w^to^™^^?™^ bel0n ^ t0 a clas? of peopTe who, 
even according to the Old Testament, have the greatest need of heavenlv compensa 

as Teh orln^rT aS disci P les > ^^ *>ecau?e they were already ZKZ 

toother withn n I U r ter aS V °. UDtary hearers ' He r <^rds this audience, brought 
together without previous preparation, as representing the new order of things and 

promulgates before this new Israel the principle of the peS Taw Then substi 
Sp m ii HlSd H^ lpleSf0r 5l d0Ct0rsof tbe ancient economy, He points ou to Tern 
work whT.h H™ °^ Whl f ^ Gy Wil i be able t0 accomplish in theworld the gWrioS 
hoW fnTos li^tT t / wi £ enL £ a - Stly ' He Ur ^ es them > in the n ame of 111 they 
fession in S', l™ ^ S° Ddlt i° n bv _ ^king their life agree with their V vo- 
vtet™JrtA^lw h * t6Sted *? y ? hG J ud S ment , they may not come to ruin. In 
WefrJSEr L? V£ S dlscourse la <* unity and regular progression? How can 
w\tnou ^PnnnZr haUh Tr? Ce u Pt ^'i nLuk ^ are for the most plrt thrown together, 
SaSS'^ detaC ^ d tr ° m , their natural context V* It is in Matthew 
in erwovlr ^w th ac t ^ r V. amou g, ot ^ rs > acknowledges, that we find foreign elements 
brealTtZ ,I^i, tlS T.r° f the dls . course \ they are easily perceived, for they 
Dolatior X «h? ectl0n ' and the association of ideas which has occasioned the inter- 
der) vers t) T» T Thus V ver M3 T 26 reconciliation (apropos of hatred and mur- 
uerj , vers. M, 30, a precept, which is found elsewhere in Matthew itself (18 : 8, 9) ; 



* << 



Untersuchungen, " p. 154. 



214 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

vers. 31 and 32 (a passage which is found 19 : 3-9) ; 6 : 7-15, the Lord's Prayer, an 
evident interruption in His treatment of the three principal Pharisaic virtues (alms, 
vers. 2-4 ; prayer, vers. 5, 6 ; fasting, vers. 16-18) ; 6 : 24 (if not even 19) -34, a pas- 
sage on providence (in connection with the avarice of the Pharisees) ; 7 : 6-11, and 13, 
14, precepts, simply juxtaposited ; 7 : 15-20, a passage lor which 12 : 33-35 should 
be substituted ; lastly, 7 : 22, 23, where allusion is made to facts which lie out of the 
horizon of that early period. It is remarkable that these passages, whose foreign 
character is proved by the context of Matthew, are the very passages that are found 
dispersed over different places in the Gospel of Luke, where their appropriateness is 
easily verified. The author of the first Gospel could not be blamed for this combi- 
nation of heterogeneous elements within one and the same outline, unless his compi- 
lation of the discourse had been made from the first with an historical aim. But if 
we admit, as we are authorized by the testimony of Papias to admit, that this dis- 
course belonged originally to a collection of discourses compiled with a didactic or 
liturgical aim, and that the author wanted to give a somewhat complete exposition 
of the new moral law proclaimed by Jesus, there is nothing more natural than this 
agglomerating process. It is evident that the author found, in this way, a means of 
^producing in his readers, just as anj' other evangelist, the thrilling impression which 
the word of Jesus had made on the hearts of His hearers (Matt. 7 : 28, 29). The way 
in which these two versions stand related to each other, will not allow of their being 
deduced from a proto-Mark as a common source, according to Holtzmann and 
Weizsacker. And besides, how, in this case, did it happen that this discourse was 
omitted in our canonical Mark ? The species of logophobia which they attribute to 
him, in order to explain this fact, is incompatible with Mark 9 : 39-51, and 13. 

A religious party has made a party-banner of this discourse. According to them, 
this discourse is a summary of the teaching of Jesus, who merely spiritualized the 
Mosaic law. But how are we to harmonize with this view the passages in which 
Jesus makes attachment to His person the very centre of the new righteousness 
{for my sake, Matt. 5:11; for the sake of the Son of man, Luke 6 : 22), and those in 
which He announces Himself as the Final and Supreme Judge (Matt. 7 : 21-23, 
comp. with Luke 6 : 46 : Lord, Lord !) ? The true view of the religious import of 
this discourse, is that which Gess has expressed in these well-weighed words : " The 
Sermon on the Mount describes that earnest piety which no one can cultivate with- 
out an increasing feeling of the need of redemption, by means of which the right- 
eousness required by such piety may at last be realized' ' (p. 6). 

2. The Centurion's Servant: 7:1-10. — This was the most striking instance of 
faith that Jesus had met with up to this time ; and what was more astonishing, He 
was indebted for this surprise to a Gentile. Jesus instantly perceives the deep sig- 
nificance of this unexpected incident, and cautiously indicates it in ver. 9, while in 
Matt. 8 : 11, 12 it is expressed with less reserve. We should have expected the reverse, 
according to the dogmatic prepossessions which criticism imputes to our evangelists. 
It is obliged, therefore, to have recourse to the hypothesis of subsequent interpolations. 
This cure is connected, in Matthew as well as in Luke, with the Sermon on the 
Mount. This resemblance in no way proves, as some think, a common written 
source. For, 1. The two passages are separated in Matthew by the healing of the 
leper, which Luke assigns to another time ; 2. The narratives of the two evangelists 
present very considerable differences of detail ; lastly, 3. There was nothing to pre- 
vent -certain groups of narrative, more or less fixed, being formed in the oral teach- 
ing of the gospel, which passed in this way into our written narratives. As to Mark, 
he omits this miracle, an omission difficult to account for, if he copied Matthew and 
Luke (Bleek), and equally difficult if, with them, he derived his narrative from an 
original Mark (Ewald and Holtzmann). Holtzmann (p. 78), with Ewald, thinks that 
" if he cut out the Sermon on the Mount, he might easily omit also the passage which 
follows, and which opens a new section." But on other occasions it is asserted that 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. £15 

Mark purposely omits the discourses, to make room for facts. Now, are we not here 
concerned with a fact ? Bleek does not even attempt to explain this omission. 

Vers. l-6a.* The First Deputation. — The Alex, reading eireidn, since assuredly, has 
no meaning. There is something solemn in these expressions : knATjauae, had fulfilled, 
and els tuS anods, in the ears of the people. The proclamation which had just taken 
place is given as something complete. The circumstance that this miracle took place 
just when Jesus returned to Capernaum, after this discourse, was remembered in the 
traditional account, and has been faithfully preserved in our two evangelical narra- 
tives. • The centurion (ver. 2) was probably a Roman soldier in the service of Herod ; 
he was a proselyte, and had even manifested special zeal on behalf of his new faith 
(ver. 5). Instead of dovlo;, a slave, Matthew says nate, a word which may signify 
either a son or a servant, and which Luke employs in the latter sense at ver. 7 Bleek 
and Holtzmanu prefer the meaning son in Matthew, because otherwise it would be 
necessary to admit that the centurion had only one slave." As if a man could not 
say : " My servant is sick," though he had several servants ! The meaning servant 
is more probable in Matthew, because it better explains the reluctance which the cen- 
turion feels to trouble the Lord. If it had beem his son. he would doubtless have 
been bolder. The malady must have been, according to Matthew's description, ver. 
6, acute rheumatism. And whatever criticism may say, this malady, when it affects 
certain organs, the heart for instance, may become mortal. The words : who was 
very dear to him, serve to explain why a step so important as a deputation of the eld- 
ers should have been taken. The latter are doubtless the rulers of tbe synagogue, 
whose duty it was to maintain order in the congregation. They could more easily 
. explain to Jesus the honorable facts which made in favor of the centurion, than he 
could himself. 

Vers. 66-8. f The Second Deputation. — The centurion, from his house, sees Jesus 
approaching with His retinue of disciples. The veneration with which this mysteri- 
ous person inspires him makes him afraid even to receive Him under his roof ; he 
sends, therefore, a second deputation. Strauss sees in this a contradiction of his 
former proceeding. But it was simply a deeper humility and stronger faith that had 
dictated this course, 'luavog here denotes moral worth, as in 3 : 16 and elsewhere. 
Faith vies with humility in this man. The expression uke Xoyu, say in a icoi'd, sug- 
gests this means in preference to His coming in person. In Matthew's narrative all 
these proceedings are united in a single act ; the centurion comes himself to tell 
Jesus of the sickness, and to the offer of Jesus to visit his house, returns the answer 
which we find in Luke 5 : 84 Bleek regards the details in Luke as an amplification 
of the original narrative ; others consider Matthew's account an abridgment of Luke's. 
But how could Luke exaggerate in this way the plain statement of Matthew, or Mat- 
thew mangle the description of Luke ? Our evangelists were earnest believers. All 
that tradition had literally preserved was the characteristic reply of the centurion (ver. 
8), and our Lord's expression of admiration (ver 9). The historical outline had been 

* Ver. 1. A. B. C. X. IT., eTzscdrj instead of enei 6e. 

\ Ver. 6. B. L., EKaTovTapxnS instead of eKaTovrapxog. &* B. omit npoS avrov. 
Ver. 7. B. L., laQrjTco instead of laBrjaerai. 

t What can be more natural than the reporting that as said by one's self which 
is said by an authorized deputation, where the object of the writer is to condense ? 
This is what Matthew has done. " He does that which is done, though it be done 
by another for him." See a parallel case in Matt. 20:20, compared with Mark 
10 : 35.— J. H. 



216 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

created with greater freedom in the oral narration. This explains in a very natural 
manner the difference between our two narratives. Although he was only an ordinary 
man (dvBpunoS). and a man in a dependent position, the centurion had some subordi- 
nates through whom he could act without always going himself to the place. Could not 
Jesus, who stood far above him in the hierarchy of being, having the powers of the 
invisible world at His disposal, make use, if He pleased, of a similar power? We 
may compare here Jesus' own words respecting the angels which ascend and descend 
(John 1 : 52). How are we to explain the existence of such faith in this man ? We 
must bear in mind the words of ver. 3 : having heard of Jesus. The fame of the 
miracles of Jesus had reached even him. There was one cure especially, which 
Jesus had wrought at Capernaum itself, and since Cana, which presented a re- 
markable similarity to that which the centurion besought — the cure of the nobleman's 
son (John 4). Perhaps his knowledge of this miracle is the most natural mode of 
explaining the faith implied in the message which he addresses to Jesus by the mouth 
of his friends. The expression, such faith, refers not to the request for a cure, but 
for a cure without the aid of His bodily presence. It was, as it were, a paroxysm of 
faith ! 

Vers. 9 and 10. x * The Cure. — The severe words respecting the Jews, which in 
Matthew Jesus adds to the praise bestowed on the centurion's faith, seem to prove 
that Matthew makes use of a different source of information from Luke's. These 
words are found, in fact, in Luke in a totally different connection (13 : 28), at a more 
advanced period, when they are certainly more appropriate. 

Several ancient aDd modern critics identify this cure with that of the nobleman's 
son (John 4). The differences, however, are considerable : f here we have a soldier 
of Gentile origin, there a courtier of Jewish origin ; here the place is Capernaum, 
there Cana ; here we have a man who in his humility is reluctant that Jesus should 
enter his house, there a man who comes a long way seeking Jesus that he may induce 
Him to go with him to his home ; lastly, and in our view this difference is most de- 
cisive, here we have a Gentile given as an example to all Israel, there a Jew, whose 
conduct furnishes occasion for Jesus to throw a certain amount of blame on all his 
Galilean fellow-countrymen. In truth, if these two narratives referred to the same 
fact, the details of the Gospel narratives would no longer deserve the least credence. 
According to Keim, the miracle is to be explained, on the one hand, by the faith of 
the centurion and the sick man, which already contained certain healing virtues, and 
on the other, by the moral power of the word of Jesus, which word was something 
between a wish and a command, and completed the restoration. But does not this 
ethico- psychical mode of action require the presence of him who effects a cure in this 
way ? Now this presence is unmistakably excluded here in both narratives by the 
prayer of the centurion, and by this word of Jesus : so great faith / And what is 
this something between a wish and a command V 

3. The Son of the Widow of Nain : 7 : 11-17.— The following narrative is one of 
those which clearly reveal our Lord's tenderness of heart, and the power which 
human grief exerted over Him. The historical reality of this fact has been objected 
to on the ground that it is only related by Luke. Criticism always reasons as if the 
evangelists were swayed by the same historical prepossessions as itself. The life of 

* Ver. 10. &. B. L. ItP leri< i ue , omit acQevowra before dovlov. 

f This difference is well stated in the admirable work of Trench on "The 
Miracles," p. 127 (7th edition)— a book which, with that on " The Parables," readers 
who, like Sabbath-school teachers, wish to have the meaning of the Qospels, will find 
most valuable— J. H. 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 217 

Jesus presented such a rich store of miraculous incidents that no one ever dreamed 
of giving a complete record of them. Jesus alludes to miracles performed at Chora- 
zin, none of which are related in our Gospels. With a single exception, we are 
equally ignorant of all that were wrought at Bethsaida. It is very remarkable that, 
among all the miracles which are indicated summarily in our Gospels (4 : 23, 40, 41, 
6 : 18, 19 and parall., 7 : 21, etc. ; John 2 : 23, 4 : 45, 6 : 1, 20 : 30, 21 T 25), one or two 
only of each class are related in detail. It appears that the most striking example of 
each class was chosen, and that from the first no attempt was made to preserve any 
detailed account of the others. For edification, which was the sole aim of the popu- 
lar preaching, this was sufficient. Ten cures of lepers would say no more to faith 
than one. But it might happen that some of the numerous miracles passed over by 
the tradition, came, through private sources of information, to the knowledge of one 
of our evangelists, and that he inserted them in his work. Thus, under the category 
of resurrections, the raising of Jairus' daughter had taken the foremost place in the 
tradition — it is found in the three Syn. — while other facts of the kind, such as that 
before us, had been left in the background, without, however, being on that account 
denied. 

Vers. 11 and 12.* TJie Meeting. — The reading h r<p i&S (xpovu), in the following 
time, does not connect this narrative so closely with the preceding as the reading h 
Ty k^iji (7//j,ipa), the following day. This is a reason for preferring the former ; it is only 
natural that the more precise should be substituted for the less definite connection. 
Robinson found a hamlet named Ne'in to the south-west of Capernaum, at the north- 
ern foot of the little Hermon. It is in this locality, moreover, that Eusebius and 
Jerome place the city of Nain. Jesus would only have to make a day's journey to 
reach it from Capernaum. Josephus (Bell. Jud. iv. 9. 4) mentions a city of Nam, 
situated on the other side of Jordan, in the south part of the Persea ; and Kostlin, 
relying on the expressions in ver. 17, applied this name to this town in the immediate 
neighborhood of Judsea, and thought that Luke's narrative must have come from a 
Judsean source. But we shall see that ver. 17 may be explained without having re- 
course to this supposition, which is not very natural. The nai Idov, and behold, ex- 
presses something striking in the unexpected meeting of the two processions — the 
train which accompanied the Prince of Life, and that which followed the victim of 
death. This seems to be expressed also by the relation of licavoi in ver. 11 to Uavog 
in ver. 12. The first of these words has been omitted by many mss., because the ex- 
pression : his disciples, appeared to refer to the apostles alone. At ver. 12 the con- 
struction is Aramaean. The dative ry urjrpi expresses all the tenderness of the re- 
lationship which had just been severed. 

Vers. 13-15. f The Miracle. — The expression : the Lord, is seldom met with in our 
Gospels except in Luke, and principally in the passages which are peculiar to him : 
10 : 1, 11 : 39, 12 : 42, 13 : 15, 17 : 5, 6, 18 : 6, 22 : 31, 61 (Bleek). The whole circum- 
stances enumerated ver. 12 : an only son, a widowed mother, and the public sympa- 
thy, enable us to understand what it was that acted with such power upon the heart 
of Jesus. It seems that He could not resist the silent appeal presented by this com- 

* Vers. 11-14. Mjj. 70 Mnn. It ali i. read, ev to efrc instead of ev rrj e^5, which is 
the reading of T. R. with 8. C. D. K. M. S. n. many Mnn. Syr. It*"*. 8. B. D. F. 
L. Z. Syr 8Ch . ltP leri 9» e , omit inavoi. Ver. 12. 7 Mjj. add w after avrr\. &. B. L, Z. 
add rjv before ovv avrr). 

f Ver. 13. The mss. vary between eir' avrr) and en' avrriv. 



218 COMMEtfTAKY OH ST. LUKE. 

bination of circumstances. His heart is completely subdued by the sobs of the 
mother. Hence the word, at once tender and authoritative: Weep not. Prudence 
perhaps would have dictated that He should not work such a striking miracle at this 
time. But when pity speaks so loud (kon'kayxvicQrj), there is no longer any room for 
prudence. Besides, He feels Himself authorized to comfort. For in this very meet- 
ing He recognizes the will of His Father. Among the Jews the bier was not cov- 
ered ; it was a simple plank, with a somewhat raised edge. The body, wrapped in 
its shroud, was therefore visible to all. Jesus lays His hand on the bier, as if to 
arrest this fugitive from life. The bearers, struck by the majesty of this gesture, 
which was at once natural and symbolical, stopped. There is a matchless grandeur 
in this ool 2.eyu : " I say to thee, ... to thee who seemest no longer able to hear 
the voice of the living . . ." There is absolutely nothing in the text to justify 
the sarcasm of Keim * "Faith in a force which penetrates to the dead, even through 
the wood of the bier, evidently belongs to the evangelist, but it is not ours." The 
resurrection is in no way attributed to the touching of the bier, but to the command 
of Jesus. The interruption of the connection between the soul and the body in death, 
as in sleep, is only relative ; and as man's voice suffices to re-establish this connection 
in any one who is rapt in slumber, so the word of the Lord has power to restore this 
interrupted connection even in the dead. The advocates of the natural interpretation 
have maintained that the young man was only in a lethargic sleep. But if this were 
so, the miracle of power would only disappear to be replaced by a miracle of knowl- 
edge quite as incomprehensible. How could Jesus know that this apparently dead 
man was still living, and that the moment of his awaking was imminent ?* As soon 
as the soul returned to animate the body, motion and speech indicated its presence. 
Jesus certainly has acquired a right over the resuscitated man ; He asserts this right, 
but simply to enjoy the happiness of restoring to the afflicted mother the treasure 
which He has rescued from death. The expression : He gave him to his mother, cor- 
responds to this : He was moved with compassion, ver. 13. 

Vers. 16, 17. f The Effect produced. — On the feeling of fear, see chap. 5:8. A 
great prophet : a greater than John the Baptist himself, a prophet of the first rank, 
such as Elijah or Moses. The second expression : God hath visited ... is more 
forcible still ; it suggests more than it expresses. The expression : this saying [this 
rumor, A. V.], might be referred to the fame of the miracle which was immediately 
spread abroad. But the words irepl avrov, concerning Him, which depend, as in ver. 
15, on AoyoS ovtoS, rather incline us to refer this expression to the two preceding ex- 
clamations (ver. 16): " This manner of thinking and speaking about Jesus spread 
abroad." It is an indication of progress in the development of the work of Jesus. 
In order to explain into Judoea, Keim (i. p. 72) unceremoniously says : Luke just 
makes Nain a city of Judaea. But the term h^lbev, literally : went out, signifies the 
very contrary ; it intimates that these sayings, after having filled Galilee (their first 
sphere, understood without express mention), this time passed beyond this natural 

* Zeller (" Apostelgesch. " p. 177) replies with some smartness to this ancient 
rationalistic explanation. " In order to admit it," he says, " it must be thought cred- 
ible that, within the short period embraced by the evangelical and apostolic history, 
there took place five times over, thrice in the Gospels and twice in the Acts, this 
same circumstance, this same remarkable chance of a lethargy, which, though unper- 
ceived by those who were engaged about the dead, yields to the first word of the di- 
vine messenger, and gives rise to a belief in a real resurrection," 

f Ver, 16. A. B. C. L. Z. , riyepBr) for eyrjyepTcu. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 219 

limit, and resounded as far as the country of Judaea, where they filled every mouth. 
There is no necessity, therefore, to give the word Judaea here the unusual meaning of 
the entire Holy Land, as Meyer and Bleek do. The reason why this detail is added, 
is not in any way what Kostlin's acute discernment surmised in order to build upon 
it the critical hypothesis that the narrative is of Judaean origin. These words are 
intended to form the transition to the following passage. John was in prison in the 
south of the Holy Land, in the neighborhood of Judaea (in Peraea, -in the castle of 
Machaerus, according to Josephus). The fame of the works of Jesus, therefore, only 
reached him in his prison by passing through Judaea. The words : and throughout 
all the region round about, which refer especially to the Persea, leave no doubt as to 
the intention of this remark of Luke. It forms the introduction to the following nar- 
rative. 

There is a difficulty peculiar to this miracle, owing to the absence of all moral 
receptivity in the subject of it. Lazarus was a believer , in the case of the daughter 
of Jairus, the faith of the parents to a certain extent supplied the place of her per- 
sonal faith. But here there is nothing of the kind. The only receptive element that 
can be imagined is the ardent desire of life with which this young man, the only son 
of a widowed mother, had doubtless yielded his last breath. And this, indeed, is 
sufficient. For it follows from this, that Jesus did not dispose of him arbitrarily. 
And as to faith, many facts prove that not in any miracle is it to be regarded as a 
dynamical factor, but only as a simple moral condition related to the spiritual aim 
which Jesus sets before Himself in performing the wonderful work. 

Keim, fully sensible of the incompetency of any psychological explanation to 
account for such a miracle, has recourse to the mythical interpretation of Strauss in 
his first " Life of Jesus." We are supposed to have here an imitation of the resur- 
rection of dead persons in the Old Testament, particularly of that wrought by Elisha 
at Shunem, which is only a short league from Nain. These continual changes of 
expedients, with a view to get rid of the miracles, are not calculated to recommend 
rationalistic criticism. And we cannot forbear reminding ourselves here of what 
Baur urged with so much force against Strauss on the subject of the resurrection of 
Lazarus : that a myth that was a creation of the Christian consciousness must have 
been generally diffused, and not have been found in only one of our Gospels. Inven- 
tion by the author (and consequently imposture) or history, is the only alternative. 

From the omission of this miracle in Matthew and Mark, the advocates of the 
opinion that a proto-Mark was the common source of the Syu., conclude that this 
narrative was wanting in the primitive document, and that Luke added it from special 
sources. But if this were only a simple intercalation of Luke's, his narrative would 
coincide immediately afterward with those of Mark and Matthew. Unfortunately 
there is no such coincidence. Matthew, after the cure of the centurion's servant, 
relates the cure of Peter's mother-in-law, and a number of incidents which have 
nothing in common with those which follow in Luke. And Mark, who has already 
omitted the preceding fact, although it should have been found, according to this 
hypothesis, in the proto-Mark — for that is where Matthew must have taken it from 
— does not fall, after this omission, into the series of facts related by Luke. After 
the day of the Sermon on the Mount, he places a series of incidents which have no 
connection with those that follow in Luke. And yet the boast is made, that the 
dependence of the three Syn. on a primitive Mark has been shown to demonstration ! 
As to Bleek, who makes Mark depend on the other two, he does not even attempt to 



220 COMMENTARY Otf ST. LUKE. 

explain how Mark, having Luke before his eyes, omitted incidents of such impor- 
tance. 

4. The Deputation from John the Baptist : 7 : 18-35. — This incident, related only 
by Matthew (chap. 11) and Luke, and by them differently placed, is in both accounted 
for in the same manner. The fame of the works of Jesus reached even John. If 
Luke does not expressly say, as Matthew does, that the forerunner was in prison, it 
is because, whatever Bleek may say, this position of affairs was sufficiently known 
from the remark, 3 : 19, 20. But how should the fame of the miracles of Jesus, of 
the works of the Christ (Matthew), awaken in his mind the doubt which his question 
appears to imply ? Strauss has maliciously expressed his surprise that no manufac- 
turer of conjectures has as yet proposed to substitute in Matthew : ovk anovoag, not 
having heard, for anovoas, having heard. But this apparent contradiction is the very 
key to the whole incident. Most assuredly John does not doubt whether Jesus is a 
divine messenger, for he interrogates Him. He does not appear even to deny Him 
all participation in the Messianic work : " John having heard in his prison of the 
works of the Christ" (Matthew). What he cannot. understand is just this, that these 
works of the Christ are not accompanied by the realization of all the rest of the Mes- 
sianic programme which he had formerly proclaimed himself, and especially by the 
theocratic judgment. " His fan is in his hand . . . the axe is already laid at 
the root of the trees. " Jesus in noway recognizes it as His (bitj to become the 
Messiah-judge whom John had announced in such solemn terms, and whose expected 
coming had so unsettled the people. On the contrary, He said : "lam come not to 
judge, but to save" (John 3 : 17). This contrast between the form of the Messianic 
work as it was being accomplished by Jesus, and the picture which John had drawn 
of it himself, leads him to inquire whether the Messianic work was to be divided 
between two different persons— the one, Jesus, founding the kingdom of God in the 
heart by His word and by miracles of benevolence ; the other commissioned to ex- 
ecute the theocratic judgment, and by acts of power to build up on the earth the 
national and social edifice of the kingdom of God. This is the real meaning of John's 
question : " Should we look for [not properly another, but] a different one (erepov in 
Matthew, and perhaps in Luke also) ?" We know in fact that several divine mes- 
sengers were expected. Might not Jesus be that prophet whom some distinguished 
from the Christ (9 : 19) ; John 1 : 20, 21, 25), but whom others identified with Him 
(John 6 : 14, 15) ? Doubtless, if this was the thought of the forerunner, it indicated 
weakness of faith, and Jesus characterizes it as such (is offended in Him, ver. 23). 
But there is nothing improbable in it. Not without reason had John said concern- 
ing himself : " He that is of the earth speaketh as being of the earth" (John 3 : 31) ; 
and Jesus, that he was less than the least of believers. Such alternations between 
wonderful exaltation and deep and sudden depression are characteristic of all the men 
of the old covenant ; lifted for a moment above themselves, but not as yet inwardly 
renewed, they soon sank back to their natural level. There is no need, therefore, to 
have recourse to the hypothesis of Chrysostom, accepted by Calvin, Grotius, etc., 
that John desired to give his disciples an opportunity to convince themselves of the 
dignity of Jesus, or to suppose, with Hase, that John's design was to stimulate Jesus, 
and accelerate the progress of His work. These explanations do not correspond 
with either the letter or the spirit of the text. 

This portion comprises : 1st, the question of John, and the reply of Jesus, vers. 
18-23 ; 2d, the discourse of Jesus upon the person and ministry of John, vers. 24-35. 



COMMENTARY 0$ ST. LUKE. 221 

1st. Vers. 18-23 : The Question and the Reply. 

Vers. 18 and 19.* The Question. — Thus far, according to Holtzmann (pp. 135, 143), 
Luke had followed the first of his sources, the proto-Mark (A.) ; now he leaves it to 
make use of the second (of which the author of our Matthew has also availed himself), 
the Logia or discourses of Matthew (A). The expression : 6 spxouevos, He who cometh, 
is taken from Malachi (3:1): " Behold, He cometh, saith the Lord." The reading 
erepov, which is certain in Matthew, is probable in Luke. This pronoun, taken in 
its strict meaning : a second, attributes to Jesus in any case the office of the Christ. 

Yers. 20-23. f The Reply. — As Matthew does not mention the miracles which were 
wrought, according to Luke, in the presence of John's messengers, criticism has sus- 
pected the latter of having invented this scene himself. This conclusion is logical if 
it be admitted that he makes use of Matthew, or of the same document as Matthew. 
But by what right are such charges preferred against a historian whose narrative 
indicates at every step the excellence of his own information, or of the sources upon 
which he drew ? Dc we not seeMatthew continually abridging his historical outline, 
in order to give the fullest possible report of the words of Jesus ? In the present 
case, do not the words : " Go, tell John what ye do see and hear," imply the historical 
fact which Matthew omits ? It is precisely because the word implied the fact, that 
this evangelist thought he might content himself with the former. The demonstra- 
tive force of Jesus' reply appears not only from the miracles, but still more from the 
connection between these facts and the signs of the Messiah, as foretold in the Old 
Testament (Isa. 35 : 4, 5, 61 : 1 et seq.). Jesus does not mention the cure of demoni- 
acs, because, perhaps, no mention is made of them in the O. T. Neander and 
Schweitzer take the words : the dead are raised up, in a figurative sense. Keim 
thinks that the evangelists have taken all these miracles in the literal sense, but that 
Jesus understood them in the spiritual sense : the people, blinded by the Pharisees, 
gain knowledge ; the publicans (the lepers) are cleansed from their defilement, etc. 
The works of the Christ should be understood in the same spiritual sense (his in- 
structions and missionary efforts). But the spiritual fruits of the ministry of Jesus 
are not facts which fall under the cognizance of the senses. ' ' What ye do see and 
hear" can only denote bodily cures and resurrections, which they either witness or 
have related. The preaching of the gospel is intentionally placed at the end ; it is 
the characteristic feature of the Messianic work, as it was being accomplished by 
Jesus, in opposition to the idea which John had formed of it. Jesus, at the same 
time, thereby reminds His forerunner of Isa. 61 : 1. These words form the transition 
to the warning of the 23d verse : " Blessed is he who shall not be offended in me," 
who shall not ask for any other proof than those of my Messianic dignity ; who shall 
not, in the humble, gentle, and mercifuf progress of my work, despise the true char- 
acteristics of the promised Christ ! Isaiah bad said of the Messiah (8 : 14) : " He shall 
be for a stone of stumbling ; and many among them shall stumble and fall." It is 
this solemn warning of which Jesus reminds both John and his disciples, as well as the 
people who witnessed the scene ; cuav^aXi^eaQat ; to hurt one's self by stumbling. To 
what a height Jesus here soars above the greatest representative of the past ! But, 

* Ver. 19. B. L. R. Z. some Mnn. lt ali( i., nvpiov instead of Itjcow. &. B. L. R. X. 
Z. 16 Mnn., erepov instead of aXkov. 

f Ver. 20. 2*. B., artecreCkev instead of arrecralKev. &. B. D. L. Z. 12 Mnn., erepov 
instead of aXkov. Ver. 21. J*. B. L. some Mnn., eneivri instead of avry. &. L., quepa 
instead of upa. Ver. 22. K. B. D. Z. omit o ItjoovS. 



222 COMMENT AKY OK ST. LUKE. 

at the same time, what sincerity is manifested by the sacred authors, who do not fear 
to exhibit in the clearest light the infirmities of their most illustrious heroes ! 

2d. Vers. 24-35. The Discourse of Jesus. — Jesus had a debt to discharge. John had 
borne striking testimony to Him ; He avails Himself of this occasion to pay public 
homage in His turn to His forerunner. He would not allow this opportunity to pass 
without doing it, because there was a strict solidarity between John's mission and His 
own. This discourse of Jesus concerning John is, as it were, the funeral oration of 
the latter ; for he was put to death soon after. Jesus begins by declaring the im- 
portance of John's appearing (vers. 24-28) ; he next speaks of the influence exerted 
by his ministry (vers. 29, 80) ; lastly, He describes the conduct of the people under 
these two great divine calls — John's ministry and His own (vers. 31-35). The same 
general order is found in Matt. 11 ; 1st. vers. 7-11 ; 2d, vers. 12-15 ; M, vers. 16-20. 

Vers. 24-28.* The Importance of John' s Appearing, — "And when the messengers 
of John were departed, He began to speak unto the people concerning John : What 
went ye out into the wilderness to see ? A reed shaken with the wind ? 25. But 
what went ye out for to see ? A man clothed in soft raiment ? Behold, they which 
are gorgeously apparelled, and live delicately, are in kings' courts. 26. But what 
went ye out for to see ? A prophet ? Yea, I say unto you, and much more than a 
prophet. 27. This is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before 
Thy face, which shall prepare Thy way before Thee. 28. For I say unto you, 
Among those that are born of women, there is not a greater [prophet] than John the 
Baptist : but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he." "Epfjaro, He 
began to, as 4 : 21 ; this term intimates the solemnity of the discourse which it intro- 
duces. The people themselves, by crowding to the baptism of John, showed that 
they recognized him as an extraordinary person ; and they were right. Is the reed 
shaken by the wind an emblem here of moral instability ? The meaning in this case 
would be : " Yes, John is really as vacillating as a reed " (Ewald) ; or else : " No, 
you must not draw this conclusion from what has just taken place" (Meyer, Nean- 
der, Bleek). But this reed shaken by the wind may be regarded simply as the em- 
blem of something of ordinary, every-day occurrence. " It was not certainly to be- 
hold something which may be seen every day that you flocked to the desert." The 
verb ktje/Meiv, to go out, expresses the great commotion caused by such a pilgrimage. 
The perf. e^eATj^vBare signifies : " What impression have you retained from what you 
went to see " while the aor. (Alex.) would signify : " What motive induced you to 
go . . ." Tischendorf acknowledges that the perf . is the true reading. The aor. 
is taken from Matthew. The verb Bedaacdat depends on e^eTiijXvBare, and must not 
be joined to the following proposition : they went out in search of a spectacle. This 
expression reminds us of the saying of Jesus (John 5 : 35) : " John was a burning and 
a shining light : and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light." In any case, 
therefore, John is something great — the popular opinion is not deceived here. But 

* Ver. 24. The mss. are divided between 7rpoS rovg ox^ovs and rous oxaovS. Vers. 
24 and 35. Instead of e^eTujTivSare, which is the reading of T. R. with 12 Mjj. and the 
greater part of the Mnn., 2*. A. B. D. L. X. and some Mnn. read efylBare ; K. II. 30 
Mnn., efyldere. Ver. 26. Just as vers. 24 and 25, except with A. K. n., which 
here read etjefylvBa-e with* T. R. Ver. 27. &. B. D. L. X. some Mnn. It. omit eyu 
after i6m>. Ver. 28. B. Z., Aeyy ; &. L. X., aurjv Asyu instead of Aeyco yap, which is 
the reading of T. R. with 13 Mjj. and the Mnn. K. B. K. L. M. X. Z. n. 25 Mnn. 
l tP ieriqu% omit irpo^r^, which is the reading of T. R. with 10 Mjj. It ali< i. Syr 8ch . ». 
B. L. X. omit tov BairTiarov. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 223 

there are two kinds of greatness — earthly greatness, and heavenly. Of whieh is 
John's ? If it had been, JesUs continues, of an earthly nature, John would not have 
dwelt in a wilderness, but in a palace. His greatness, therefore, was of a divine 
order. But, according to Jewish opinion, all greatness of this kind consists in a 
prophetic mission. Hence the conclusion at which the people arrived respecting 
John, which Jesus begins by confirming, " Yea, I say unto you ;" and then going 
beyond this, and more than a prophet. Is it not greater, indeed, to be the subject of 
prediction than to predict — to figure, in the picture of the Messianic times, as a per- 
son foreseen by the prophets, than one's self to hold the prophetic glass ? This is 
why John is more than a prophet : his appearing is a yeypa/ijuevov, an event written. 

The quotation from Mai. 3 : 1 is found in the three Syn. ; in Matthew, in the par- 
allel passage (11 : 10) ; in Mark (1 : 2), at the opening of the Gospel, but with this 
difference, that he omits the words, before Thee. On the eyu, I (after idov), the vari- 
ous readings do not permit us to pronounce. This general agreement is remarkable ; 
for the quotation is identical neither with the Hebrew text nor with the LXX. 
Neither Malachi nor the LXX. have the words, before my face, in the proposition ; 
but in the second, the former says, before me, and the latter, before my face. Fur- 
ther, the LXX. read k^a^oarOOiu instead of anooTeX?^, and euiS/.tyerac instead of 
KaraoKEvuGEi. This might be an argument in favor of a common written source, or 
of the use of one of the Syn. by the rest ; but it would not be decisive. For, 1. If 
the common source is the Proto-Mark, how could Mark himself place this quotation 
in quite a different context ? 2. If it is the Logia, why does Mark, instead of simply 
copying it, omit the words, before Thee ? 3. It would be just the same if Mark copied 
one of the other Syn. 4. Neither do these copy Mark, which does not contain the 
discourse. The coincidences in the Syn. must therefore be explained in a different 
way. The substitution in Luke and Matthew of before Thee for before me (in Mala- 
chi), results from the way in which Jesus Himself had cited this passage. In the 
prophet's view, He who was sending, and He before whom the way was to be pre- 
pared, were one and the same person, Jehovah. Hence the before me in Malachi. 
But for Jesus, who, in speaking of Himself, never confounds Himself with the 
Father, a distinction became necessary. It is not Jehovah who speaks of Himself, 
but Jehovah speaking to Jesus ; hence the form before Thee. From which evidence, 
does it not follow from this quotation that, in the prophet's idea, as well as in that of 
Jesus, Messiah's appearing is the appearing of Jehovah ? (See Gess, pp. 39, 40.) As 
to the other expressions in common, Weizsacker correctly explains them by saying 
that, since " this quotation belonged to the Messianic demonstration in habitual use," 
it acquired in this way the fixed form under which we find it in our Syn. 

The for, ver. 28, refers to the words, of whom it is written. The person whose lot 
it has been to be mentioned aloug with the Messiah, must be of no ordinary distinc- 
tion. The T. R, with the Byz. Mjj. reads: "I say unto you, that among them 
which are born of woman, there hath arisen no greater prophet than John the Bap- 
tist." The Alex, omit the word prophet, and rightly ; for there is tautology. Is 
not every prophet born of woman ? The superiority of John over all other theocratic 
and human appearances, refers not to his personal worth, but to his position and 
work. Did his inward life surpass that of Abraham, Elijah, etc. . . . ? Jesus 
does not say it did. But his mission is higher than theirs. And nevertheless, Jesus 
adds, the ancient order of things and the new are separated by such a gulf, that the 
least in the latter has a higher position than John himself. The weakest disciple has 



224 COMMEKTAEY (K ST. LUKE. 

a more spiritual intuition of divine things than the forerunner. He enjoys in Jesus 
the dignity of a son, while John is only a servant. The least believer is one with 
this Son whom John announces. It does not follow from this, that this believer is 
more faithful than John. John may be further advanced on his line, but none the 
less for that the line of the believer is higher than his. There is an element of a 
higher life in the one, which is wanting in the other. This reflection is added by 
Jesus not with a view to depreciate John, but to explain and excuse the unstead- 
fastness of his faith, the oKavdaAifrcBai (ver. 23). Several of the ancients understood 
by the least Jesus Christ, as being either John's junior, or, for the time, even less 
illustrious than he. The only way of supporting this interpretation would be to re- 
fer the words, in the kingdom of God, to is greater, which is evidently forced. "We 
have given to the comparative, less, a superlative meaning, least. Meyer, pressing the 
idea of the comparative, gives this explanation : "he who, in the new era, has a 
position relatively less lofty than that which John had in the old." This meaning is 
far-fetched ; Matt. 18 : 1 shows us how the sense of the comparative becomes super- 
lative : he who is greater [than the other] ; whence : the greatest of all. Comp. also 
Luke 9 : 48. This saying, the authenticity of which is beyond suspicion, shows how 
fully conscious Jesus was of introducing a principle of life superior to the most ex- 
alted element in Judaism. * 

Vers. 29 and 30. Retrospective Survey of the Ministry of John. — " And all the 
people that heard 'Him, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the 
baptism of John. 30. But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God 
against themselves [the Pharisees and scribes rendered God's design vain in their 
case. — M. Godet's Trans.'], being not baptized of him." These verses form the 
transition from the testimony which Jesus has just borne to John, to the application 
which he desires to make to the persons present. He attributes to the ministry of 
John a twofold result : a general movement among the lower classes of the people, 
ver. 29 ; an open opposition on the part of the rulers who determine the fate of the 
nation, ver. 30. Several interpreters (Knapp, ISTeander) have been led by the histor- 
ical form of these verses to regard them as a reflection of the evangelist introduced 
into the discourse of Jesus. But such a mention of a fact interrupting a discourse 
would be unexampled. In any case it would be indicated, and the resumption of the 
discourse pointed out in ver. 31 ; the formula, And the Lord said, at the commence- 
ment of this verse, is not authentic. Had John been still at liberty, the words all 
tliat Jieard might, strictly speaking, have referred to a fact which had taken place at 
that time, to a resolution which His hearers had formed to go and be baptized by 
John that very hour. But John was no longer baptizing (3 : 19, 20 ; Matt. 11 : 2). 
These words are therefore the continuation of the discourse. The meaning of Jesus 
is : John's greatness (28& is only a parenthesis) was thoroughly understood by the 
people ; for a time they did homage to his mission, while (tie, ver. 30) the rulers 
rejected him. And thus it is that, notwithstanding the eagerness of the people in 
seeking baptism from John, his ministry has nevertheless turned out a decided fail- 
ure, in regard to the nation as such, owing to the opposition of its leaders. The ob- 

* It is worth considering whether the element of knowledge be not that in which 
the inferiority of the Baptist lies. It was from defective knowledge — even according 
to our author's lucid account (p. 220) — that John's question was put. Nor can it be 
said, surely, that John was not a son, in the same sense in which all believers ar<j 
children of God.— J. H. 






COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE, 225 

ject understood after all that Jieard is John the Baptist and his preaching. To justify 
God is to recognize and proclaim by word and deed the excellence of His ways for the 
salvation of men. The expression : they have annulled for themselves the divine decree, 
signifies that, although man cannot foil God's plan for the world, he may render it 
vain for himself. On this conduct of the rulers, see 3 : 7. The indirect reproof ad- 
dressed by Jesus to the Pharisee Nicodemus (John 3 : 5) for having neglected the bap- 
tism of water, coincides in a remarkable manner with this passage in Luke. 

In place of these two verses, we find in Matthew (11 : 12-15) a passage containing 
the following thoughts : The appearing of John was the close of the legal and pro- 
phetical dispensation ; and the opening of the Messianic kingdom took place immedi- 
ately after. Only, men must know how to use a holy violence in order to enter into 
it (vers. 12, 13). John was therefore the expected Elijah : Blessed is he who un- 
derstands it (vers. 14, 13) ! These last two verses occur again in Matt. 17 : 12, where 
they are brought in more naturally ; it is probable that some similarity in the ideas 
led the compiler to place them here. As to vers. 12 and 13, they are placed by Luke 
in a wholly different and very obscure connection, 16 : 16. According to Holtzmann, 
it would be Matthew who faithfully reproduces here the common source, the Logia ; 
while Luke, not thinking the connection satisfactory, substitutes for this passage 
from the Logia another taken from the proto-Mark, which Matthew introduces at 
21 : 31, 32. Since, however, he was unwilling to lose the passage omitted here, he 
gives it another place, in a very incomprehensible context, it is true, but with a re- 
versal of the order of the two verses, in order to make the connection more intelligi- 
ble. Holtzmann quite prides himself on this explanation, and exclaims: "All the 
difficulties are solved. , . . This example is very instructive as showing the way 
in which such difficulties should be treated " (pp. 143-5). The only thing proved, 
in our opinion, is, that by attempting to explain the origin of the Syn. by such manip- 
ulations we become lost in a labyrinth of improbabilities. Luke, forsooth, took the 
passage 5 : 12-15 (Matthew) away from its context, because the conn«ction did not ap- 
pear to him satisfactory, and inserted this same passage in his own Gospel, 16 : 16, in a 
context where it becomes more unintelligible still ! Is it not much more natural to 
suppose that Matthew's discourse was originally composed for a collection of Logia, 
in which it bore the title, " On John the Baptist," and that the compiler collected 
under this head all the words known to him which Jesus had uttered at different times 
on this subject? As to Luke, he follows his own sources of information, which, as 
he has told us, faithfully represent the oral tradition, and which furnish evidence of 
their accuracy at every fresh test. 

Gess endeavors, it is true, to prove the superiority of Matthew's text. The violent 
(Matt. 11 : 12) would be, according to him, the messengers of John the Baptist, thus 
designated on account of the abruptness with which they had put their question to 
Jesus before all the people. And Jesus declared this zeal laudable in comparison 
with the indifference shown by the people (vers. 31-35). But, 1. How could Jesus 
say of the disciples of John that they were forcing an entrance into the kingdom, 
while they frequently assumed a hostile attitude toward Him (Matt. 9 : 14 ; John 
3 : 26) ? 2. There would be no proportion between the gravity of this saying thus 
understood, and that of the declarations which precede and follow it upon the end of 
the prophetic and the opening of the Messianic era. 

Vers. 31-35.* The Application. — " Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this 
generation ? and to what are they like ? 32. They are like unto children sitting in 
the market-place, and calling one to another, and saying, "We have piped unto you, 
and ye have not danced ; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept. 33. For 
John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and ye say, He hath a 

* Yer. 31. The T. K. at the commencement of the verse, with some Mnn., eme 
(h o kvpcos. Ver. 32. Instead of icat Xeyovoiv, ft* B. read a Xeyet, D. L. some Mnn. 
Aeyovres. ft. B. D. L. Z. omit v/xiv. Ver. 35. Some Mjj. several Mnn. omit navruv. 
ft. B. some Mnn. It. place it before tuv. ft. reads epyuv instead of tekvuv, 



226 COMMENTARY ON" ST. LUKE. 

devil. 34. The Son of man is come eating and drinking, and ye say, Behold a glut- 
tonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. 35. But Wisdom 
is justified of all her children. ' ' Here it is no longer the ministry of John simply 
that is the subject. Jesus is expressing His judgment of the conduct of the genera- 
tion then living, with respect to the two great divine messages with w T hich it had just 
been favored. There is something severe in the double question of ver. 31. Jesus 
has a difficulty in finding a comparison that will adequately set forth the senseless 
conduct which He has witnessed. At last His mind fixes on an image which answers 
to His thought. He recalls a game at which the children of His time were accus- 
tomed to play, and in which perhaps He had Himself in His youth taken part of an 
evening, in the market-place of Nazareth. This game bore some resemblance to that 
which we call a charade. The players divided themselves into two groups, of which 
each one in turn commences the representation of a scene in ordinary life, while the 
other, taking up the scene thus begun, finishes the representation of it. It is not 
therefore, as with us, the mere guessing of a word ; but, in conformity with the 
more dramatic character of the oriental genius, a passing from the position of specta- 
tors to that of actors, so as to finish the representation commenced by the players 
who imagined the scene. In this case two attempts are made alternatively, one by each 
of the two groups of children (irpoGtyavovciv a?.2,y?.oti, calling one. to another, ver. 32) ; 
but with equal want of success. Each time the actors whose turn it is to start the 
game are foiled by the disagreeable humor of their companions, whose part it is to 
take up the representation and finish the scene. The first company comes playing a 
dance tune ; the others, instead of rising and forming a dance, remain seated and in- 
different. The latter, in their turn, indicate a scene of mourning ; the others, instead 
of forming themselves into a funeral procession, assume a weary, sullen attitude. 
And thus, when the game is over, each company has reason to complain of the other, 
and say : "We have . . . you have not." The general meaning is obvious: 
the actors, in both cases, represent the two divine messengers joined by the faithful 
followers who gathered about them from the first : John, with his call to repentance, 
and his train of penitents ; Jesus, with His promises of grace, and attended by a 
company of happy believers. But while the means they employ are so different, and 
so opposed even, that it seems that any man who resists the one must submit to the 
other, moral insensibility and a carping spirit have reached such a height in Israel 
that they paralyze their effects.* De Wette, Meyer, and Bleek give quite a different 
application of the figure. According to them, the compan3 r which begins the game 
represents the people, who want to make the divine messengers act according to their 
fancy ; the other company, which refuses to enter into their humor, represents John 
and Jesus, who persevere, without deviation, in the path God has marked out for 
them. But in this case the blame in the parable should fall not on the second 

* The figure, as explained by M. Godet, would rather illustrate a want of sympa- 
thy between the disciples of John and those of Jesus, than the waywardness and in- 
difference of the Jewish people to God's messengers. Surely the difficulty which the 
commentators find here arises from pressing the correspondence of the figure beyond 
the single point of the untowardness of the generation to which John and Jesus 
preached. — Tr. [The translator's view of M. Godet's rendering does not appear to 
be well founded. He is surely right in his view of frequent indefiniteness in the in- 
troductory words — an indefiniteness belonging to the nature of the case. ' That re- 
minds me," says one, and what he says indicates the point of contact, the thing sug- 
gesting and the thing suggested. — J. H.] 



COMJtfEtfTABY OX ST. LUKE. 227 

company, which would be justified in not entering into a part imposed upon them, 
but on the first, which tries to exact a tyrannical compulsion on the other. Now it 
is not so at all. It is evident that those on whom the blame falls are the dissatisfied 
and peevish spectators, who each time refuse to enter into the proposed game (and 
ye say . . . and ye say . . . vers. 33, 34). Besides, when did the people 
seek to exert such an influence on John and Jesus as would be indicated here ? Lastly, 
there is an evident correspondence between the two reproaches: "We have piped 
. . . we have mourned . . ." and the two facts : " John came . . . The 
Son of man is come . . ." What has led these interpreters astray is the some- 
what inaccurate form in which the parable is introduced at ver. 32 : " This generation 
is like to children calling one to another." But in these preambles the connection 
between the image and the idea is often indicated in a concise and somewhat inaccu- 
rate manner. Thus Matt. 8 : 24 : " The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man which 
sowed," and elsewhere. The meaning, therefore, of ver. 32 is simply this : " The 
conduct of the present generation toward the messengers sent to it by God is like 
that which takes place among children who . . ." By the repetition of "and 
ye say" (vers. 33 and 34), Jesus translates, so to speak, into words, the refusal of the 
people to enter into the feeling of holy grief or holy joy with which God would im- 
press them. 

But notwithstanding this general resistance, divine wisdom finds some hearts 
which open to its different solicitations, and which justify by their docility the con- 
trary methods it adopts. These Jesus calls the children of tcisdom, according to an 
expression used in the book of Proverbs. Kal (ver. 35) : " And nevertheless." The 
preposition and, from, indicates that God's justification is derived from these same 
men, that is to say, from their repentance on hearing the reproof and threatenings of 
John, and from their faith, resembling a joyous amen, in the promises of Jesus. 
IlavTuv, all : not one of these children of wisdom remain behind ... all force 
their way into the kingdom. The term wisdom recalls the word counsel (ver. 30) ; 
the expression is justified, the justified of ver. 29. This connection will not allow of 
the meaning being given to ver. 35 which some have proposed : " Divine wisdom 
has been justified from the accusations (otto) brought against it by its own children, 
the Jews. " This meaning is also excluded by the word all, which would contain 
an inadmissible exaggeration (ver. 29).* Instead of tekvov, children, & reads epyuv, 
works: "Wisdom has derived its justification from the excellent works which it 
produces in those who submit to it." But the epithet ■navTuv } all, does not suit this 
sense. The reading epyuv is taken from the text of Matthew, in certain documents 
(&. B. Syr. Cop.). It would be more allowable in that Gospel, in which the word 
kglvtuv is omitted. But even then it is improbable. 

This discourse is one of those which best show what Jesus was as a popular 

* Holtzmann, following Hitzig, regards the word -kcivtuv, all, as added by Luke, 
who wrongly applied (as we have done) this expression, children of wisdom, to be- 
lievers. What wonderful sagacity our critics have ! Not only do they know more 
than the evangelists did respecting the meaning of the words of the Master, but they 
have a more accurate knowledge of their exact terms ! For Holtzmann 's sense vn-6 
would have been needed instead of a-n-6. It is unnecessary to refute the opinion of 
Weizsacker and others, who regard the question of John the Baptist as the first 
sign of a new-born faith. This opinion gives the lie to the scene of the baptism, to 
the testimonies of John the Baptist, and to the answer even of Jesus (vers. 23 and 
286). 



228 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

speaker. The understanding is brought into play, and the curiosity stimulated by 
the interrogative form (vers. 24, 26, and 31) ; and the imagination excited by lively 
images, full of charm (vers. 24, 25, and 32). Lastly, there is a striking application 
to the conscience : John failed through his austerity ; I shall fail through my gentle- 
ness ; neither under one form nor another will you obey God. Nevertheless there 
are those whose conduct by condemning you justifies God. 

5. The Gratitude of the Woman who was a Sinner : 7 : 36-50. — The following 
narrative seems to have been placed here as an illustration of wisdom being justified 
by her children (ver. 35), and particularly of this last word : all. 

Vers. 36-39.* The Offence. We are still in that epoch of transition, when the 
rupture between our Lord and the Pharisees, although already far advanced, was not 
complete. A member of this party could still invite Him without difficulty. It has 
been supposed that this invitation was given with a hostile intention. But this 
Pharisee's own reflection, ver. 39, shows his moral state. He was hesitating be- 
tween the holy impression which Jesus made upon him, and the antipathy which his 
caste felt against Him. Jesus speaks to him in a tone so friendly and familiar that 
it is difficult to suppose him animated by malevolent feelings. Further, ver. 42 
proves unanswerably that he had received some spiritual benefit from Jesus, and 
that he felt a certain amount of gratitude toward Him ; and ver. 47 says expressly 
that he loved Jesus, although feebly. The entrance of the woman that was a sinner 
into such society was an act of great courage, for she might expect to be ignomini- 
ously sent away. The power of a gratitude that knew no bounds for a priceless 
benefit which she had received from the Saviour can alone explain her conduct. 
Ver. 42 shows what this benefit was. It was the pardon of her numerous and fearful 
sins. "Was it on hearing Him preach, or in a private interview, or through one of 
those looks of Jesus, which for broken hearts were like a ray from heaven ... V 
She had received from Him the joy of salvation ; and the perfume which she brought 
with her was the emblem of her ardent gratitude for this unspeakable gift. If we 
adopt the Alex, reading, the sense is : "A woman who was a sinner in that city," 
that is to say, who practised in that very city her shameful profession. The received 
reading : ' ' There was in the city a woman that was a sinner, ' ' is less harsh. 'A/iap- 
r&A6s a sinner, in the same superlative sense in which the Jews thought they might 
apply this epithet to the Gentiles (Gal. 2 : 15). Mvpov denotes any kind of odoriferous 
vegetable essence, particularly that of the myrtle. As it was the custom when at 
table to recline upon a couch, the feet being directed backward, and without their 
sandals, there was nothing to prevent this woman from coming up to Jesus and 
anointing His feet. But just when she was preparing to pay Him this homage, she 
burst into tears at remembrance of her faults. Her tears streamed down upon the 
Saviour's feet, and having no cloth to wipe them, she promptly loosed her hair, and 
with that supplied its place. In order to duly appreciate this act, we must remember 
that among the Jews it was one of the greatest humiliations for a woman to be seen 
in public with her hair down.f The ns who (ver. 39), refers to the name and family, 
and the Koranr), what, to the character and conduct. 

* Ver. 36. 5*. B. D. L. Z. It ali i. some Mnn., tov olkov instead of rrjv oimav. &, 
B. D. L. X. Z. some Mnn., KaTe/clnd?] instead of aveKkidrj. Ver. 37. &. B. L. Z. It ali( i. 
place tjtis tjv after yvvr), and not after ev rrj tzoIel. Ver. 38. &* A. D. L. X,, egefiaacev 
instead of e&fia&v. 

f See my " Commentaire sur l'Evangile de St. Jean," chap. xii. 3 t 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 229 

Vers. 40-43.* The Parable. — If this man wanted a proof of the prophetic gift of 
Jesus, he received it instantly in the following parable, which so exactly meets his 
thoughts and secret questions. The form of the following conversation is kindly, 
familiar, and even slightly humorous. It is just the tone of the Socratic irony. 
The denarius was equivalent to about three farthings ; the larger of the two sums 
amounted, therefore, to about £16, the smaller to 32s. The former represents the 
enormous amount of sins to which this sinful woman pleaded guilty, and which Jesus 
had pardoned ; the latter, the few infractions of the law for which the Pharisee 
reproached himself, and from the burden of which Jesus had also released him. 
'Op9c55 iKptvac : " thou hast rightly judged ; and in judging so rightly, thou hast con- 
demned thyself." It is the k&vv bpQtis of Socrates, when he had caught his interlocu- 
tor in his net. But that which establishes such an immeasurable distance between 
Jesus and the Greek sage is the way in which Jesus identifies Himself, both here 
and in what follows, with the offended God who pardons and who becomes the 
object of the sinner's grateful love. 

Vers. 44-47. f The Application. — Jesus follows an order the inverse of that which 
He had taken in the parable. In the latter He descends from the cause to the effect, 
from the debt remitted to the gratitude experienced. In the application, on the con- 
trary, He ascends from the effect to the cause. For the effect is evident, and comes 
under tlie observation of the senses {fite-rreis). Jesus describes it, vers. 44-46, while 
the came is concealed (ver. 47), and can only be got at by means of the principle 
which fcrms the substance of the parable. During the first part of the conversation 
Jesus was turned toward Simon. He now turns toward the woman whom He is 
about to make the subject of His demonstration. Jesus had not complained of the 
want of respect and the impoliteness of His host. But He had noticed them, and 
felt them deeply. And now what a contrast He draws between the cold and meas- 
ured welcoW of the Pharisee, who appeared to think that it was honor enough to 
admit Him to his table, and the love shown by this woman that was a sinner ! The 
customary bVth for the feet had been omitted by the one. while copious tears were 
showered upW His feet by the other ; the usual kiss with which the host received 
his guests Sin\pn had neglected, while the woman had covered His feet with kisses ; 
the precious ptrf ume with which it was usual to anoint an honored guest on a festive 
day (Ps. 23 : 5)W had withheld, but she had more than made up for the omission. 
In fact, it is notiSimon, it is she who has done Jesus the honors of the house ! The 
omission of -ri?s iMa/rfc (ver. 44) in the Alex., " [the hairs] of her head," is probably 
the result of negligence. The word perfectly suits the context ; the head, as the 
most noble part o\ the body, is opposed to the feet of Jesus. The reading elcfjAdev, 
" [ever since] she mered" found in one Mn., has at first glance something taking 
about it. But it hat too little support ; and the T. R., " ever since 1 entered" is in 
reality preferable. J\sus thereby reminds Simon of the moment when He came under 
his roof, and when He had a right to expect those marks of respect and affection 
which had been negleVted. The woman had followed Jesus so closely that she had 
all but entered with Htoi ; there she was, the moment He was set at the table, to pay 
Him homage. From .Ms visible effect— the total difference between the love of the 

* Ver. 42. J*. B. L. Z. some Mnn. Syr. omit enre. 

t Ver. 44. -n?? Kefa.tis, which is the reading of T. R. with 11 Mjj. after Qpifrv, is 
omitted by 11 Mjj. 2f Mnn. Syr 8ch . It., etc. Ver. 45. L* some Mnn. lt a,1( i. read 
eLarjTiOev instead of eLar)\Bov. Ver. 47. &*, enrov instead of leyu. 



230 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

one and the love of the other, Jesus ascends, ver. 47, to its hidden cause — the differ- 
ence in the measure of forgiveness accorded to them respectively. Ov x"-P lv , where- 
fore ; properly, an account of which, that is to say, of this contrast between the 
respective exhibitions of your gratitude (vers. 44r46). This conjunction is the in- 
verse of the therefore in ver. 42, which led from the cause to the foreseen effect. We 
might make this wherefore bear upon the principal idea," Her sins are forgiven her." 
In that case we should have to regard the words heyu aol, 1 say unto thee, as an 
inserted phrase, and the last proposition as an exegetical explanation of this where- 
fore : ' ' Wherefore I say unto thee, her many sins are forgiven, and that because she 
loved much." But we may also make the wherefore bear directly on " I say unto 
thee," and make all the rest of the verse the complement of this verb : " Wherefore 
I say unto thee, that her many sins are forgiven her, because that . . ." The 
latter is evidently the more simple construction. The reading, 1 said unto thee, of &, 
would indicate that this truth was already contained in this parable. It has neither 
authority nor probability. How should we understand the words, for she loved much? 
Is love, according to Jesus, the cause of forgiveness ? Catholic interpreters, and 
even many Protestants, understand the words in this sense : God forgives us much 
when we love much ; little, if we love little. But, 1. In this case there is no cohe- 
rence whatever between the parable and its application. On this principle,. Jesus 
should not have asked, ver. 42, " Which of them will love Him most ?" but, " Which 
then loved Him most ?" The remission of the two debts of such different amounts 
would result from the different degrees of love in the two debtors ; while, on ;he con- 
trary, it is the difference between the debts remitted which produces the different 
amount of gratitude. 2. There would be, if possible, a more striking incoherence 
still between the first part of the application, ver. 47a, and the second, ver. 47b : "To 
whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." To be logical, Jesus should have 
said precisely the contrary : " Who loves little, to him little is forgiven." 3. The 
words, Thy faith hath saved thee (ver. 50), clearly show what, in Jesus' view, was the 
principle on which forgiveness was granted to this woman ; it was falh, not love. 
We must not forget that on, because, frequently expresses, just as our for does, not 
the relation of the effect to its cause, but the relation (purely logical) of the proof to 
the thing proved. We may say, It is light, for the sun is risen ; bit we may also 
say, The sun is risen, for [I say this because] it is light. So in this pissage the on, 
because, f m% may, and, according to what precedes and follows, must mean : " I say 
unto thee that her many sins are forgiven, as thou must infer from the, that she loved 
much." Thus all is consistent, the application with the parable, thi* saying with the 
words that follow, and Jesus with Himself and with St. Paul. Vei. 47b contains the 
other side of the application of this same principle : the less forgiveiess, the less love. 
This is addressed to Simon. But with delicacy of feeling Jesis gives this severe 
truth the form of a general proposition, "He to whom . . . ;" just as He also did 
with Nicodemus, " Except a man be born . . ." (John 3 : 3) 

The thought expressed in this ver. 47 raises two difficulties: 1. May forgiveness 
be only partial ? Then there would be men half-saved and hal'jlost ! 2. Is it neces- 
sary to have sinned deeply in order to love much ? The real forgiveness of the least 
sin certainly contains in germ a complete salvation, but only in germ. If faith is 
maintained and grows, this forgiveness will gradually extend to ill the sins of a man's 



life, just as they will then become more thoroughly known and 
first forgiveness is the pledge of all the rest, In the contrary 



acknowledged. The 
case, »he forgiveness 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 231 

already granted will be withdrawn, just as represented in the parable of the wicked 
debtor, Matt. 18 ; and the work of grace, instead of becoming complete, will prove 
abortive. All is transition here below, free transition, either to perfect salvation or 
to complete condemnation. As to the great amount of sin necessary in order to loving 
much, we need add nothing to what each of us already has ; it is sufficient to estimate 
accurately what we have. What is wanting to the best of us, in order to love much, 
is not sin, but the knowledge of it. 

Vers. 48-50. Conclusion. Bleek has inferred from ver. 48, thy sins are forgiven 
thee, that until this moment the woman had not obtained forgiveness. This supposi- 
tion is excluded by all that precedes. Bleek forgets that a^euvrac is a perfect indica- 
ting an actual state resulting from an act accomplished at some indefinite time in the 
past. Having regard to the pharisaical denials of the persons composing the assem- 
bly, and to the doubts which might arise in the heart of the sinning woman herself, 
Jesus renews to her the assurance of the divine fact of which she had within her the 
witness and warrant. This direct and personal declaration corresponds with the 
inward witness of the Divine Spirit in our own experience, after we have embraced 
the promises of the Word (Eph. 1 : 13). On the objection, ver. 49, comp. ver. 21. 
Kai, even; besides all the other extraordinary things He does. Jesus continues as if 
He had not heard, but all the while taking account of what was being said around 
Him (elite de, " but He said") . While addressing the woman He shows the people 
assembled the firm foundation on which her forgiveness rests. She has the benefit of 
this decree : Whosoever believeth is saved. Let ber go away, then, with her treas- 
ure, her peace, in spite of all their pharisaical murmurs ! Elg elpTjvtjv, in peace, and 
to enjoy peace. 

This beautiful narrative, preserved by Luke alone, contains the two essential ele- 
ments of what is called Paulinism — the f reeness and universality of salvation. Does 
it follow from this that it was invented posterior to Paul in order to set forth these 
great principles ? It simply proves that it was Luke's intention, as he said at the 
beginning (1 :4), to show by his Gospel, that the doctrine so clearly expressed and so 
earnestly preached by Paul was already contained in germ in all the acts and teaching 
of Jesus ; that the Gospel of Paul is nothing but the application of the principles 
previously laid down by the Lord Himself. 

A very similar narrative to this is found in the other three Gospels, but assigned 
to a much later time — to the Passion week. Mary, a sister of Lazarus, anoints Jesus 
at a repast which is given Him by the people of Bethany (Matt. 26 : 6, et seq. ; Mark 
14 : 3, et seq. ; John 12 : 1, et seq.). A great number of interpreters agree that this 
incident is the same as that we have just been considering in Luke. They rely on 
the similarity of the act, on the circumstance that Luke does not relate the anointing 
at Bethany ; and that, on the other hand, the three other evangelists do not mention 
this in Galilee ; and lastly, on the fact that in both cases the owner of the house 
where the repast is given bears the name of Simon (Luke 5 : 40 ; Matt. 26 : 6 ; Mark 
14 : 3). These reasons, doubtless, have their weight ; but they are not decisive. 
The act of anointing was associated with such a common usage on festive occasions 
(Luke 5 : 46 ; Ps. 23 . 5), that there can be no difficulty in supposing that it was 
repeated. The causes of the omission of a narrative in one or two of the evangelists 
are too accidental for us to be able to base any solid conclusion upon it. We need 
only refer to the omission in Matthew of the healing of the possessed at Capernaum, 
and of the healing of the centurion's servant in Mark, omissions which it is impossi- 
ble to account for. As to the name Simon, it was so common, that out of the small 
number of persons designated by name in the N. T., there are no less than fifteen 
Simons ! The reasons in favor of the difference of the two incidents are the follow- 






232 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

ing : 1st. The difference of place — Galilee in Luke ; in the other three, Judsea. This 
reason is of secondary value, it is true, because in chap. 10 Luke appears to place 
the visit of Jesus to Martha and Mary in the midst of the Galilean ministry. 2d. 
The difference of time. 3d. The difference of persons : the woman that was a sinner, 
in Luke, is a stranger in the house of the host (ver. 37, "a woman of the city"), and 
Simon himself regards her as such, and as altogether unknown to Jesus (ver. 39) ; 
Mary, on the contrary, belongs to a beloved family, which habitually received Jesus 
under their roof. Besides, we must always feel a repugnance to identify Mary the 
sister of Lazarus, as we know her in John 11 and Lu£e 10 : 38-42, with a woman of 
ill fame. Uh. The most important difference respects what was said : at Bethany, a 
complaint from Judas on behalf of the poor, and a reply from Jesus announcing His 
approaching death ; in Galilee, the great evangelical declaration, that love is the fruit 
of forgiveness, which is bestowed on the simple condition of faith. What agreement 
can be discovered between these two conversations ? We may conceive of very con- 
siderable alterations being made by tradition in the historical framework of a narra- 
tive. But by what marvellous process could one of these two conversations have 
been transformed into the other ? 

6. The Women who ministered to Jesus: 8 : 1-3. — By the side of the high religious 
problems raised by the life of Jesus, there is a question, seldom considered, which 
nevertheless possesses some interest : How did Jesus find the means of subsistence 
during the two or three years that His ministry lasted V He had given up His earthly 
occupation. He deliberately refrained from using His miraculous power, to supply 
His necessities. Further, He was not alone ; He was constantly accompanied by 
twelve men, who had also abandoned their trade, and whose maintenance He had 
taken on Himself in calling them to* follow Him. The wants of this itinerant society 
were met out of a common purse (John 13 : 29) ; the same source furnished their 
alms to the poor (John 12 : 6). But how was this purse itself filled ? The problem 
is partly, but not completely, explained by hospitality. Had He not various needs, 
of clothing, etc. ? The true answer to this question is furnished by this passage, 
which possesses, therefore, considerable interest. Jesus said : " Seek first the king- 
dom of God, and other things shall be added unto you." He also said : " There is 
none that leaves father, mother, . . . house, lands for the kingdom of God, who 
does not find a hundred times more." He derived these precepts from His daily 
experience. The grateful love of those whom He filled with His spiritual riches 
provided for His temporal necessities, as well as for those of His disciples. Some 
pious women spontaneously rendered Him the services of mother and sisters. 

This passage would suffice to prove the excellence of Luke's sources ; their orig- 
inality, for the other evangelists furnish no similar information ; their exactness, for 
■who would have invented such simple and positive details, with the names and rank 
of these women ? and their purity, for what can be further removed from false mar- 
vels and legendary fictions than this perfectly natural and prosaic account of the 
Lord's means of subsistence during the course of His ministry ? 

Vers. 1-3.* Luke indicates this time as a distinctly marked epoch in the ministry 
of the Lord. He ceases to make Capernaum, His IMa tto/Us, His own city (Matt. 9 : 1), 
the centre of His activity ; He adopts an altogether itinerant mode of life, and liter- 
ally has no place where to lay His head. It is this change in His mode of living, 
carried out at this time, which induces Luke to place here this glimpse into the means 

* Ver. 3. Instead of avTu, which is the reading of T. R. with &. A. L. M. X. n. 
several Mnn. It* 11 *., avrois is read in 13 Mjj. 90 Mnn. Syr. It?"»; Or. Aug. The 
mss. vary between e/c and ano. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 233 

of His material support. The aor. kyevero, it came to pass (ver. 1), indicates a definite 
time. The nai before avroS, as the sign of the apodosis, betrays an Aramaean source. 
The imperf. dtudeve, Be went throughout, denotes a slow and continuous mode of 
travelling. The preposition Kara expresses the particular care which He bestowed 
on every place, whether large {city) or small {village). Everywhere He gave Himself 
time to stay. To the general idea of a proclamation, expressed by the verb Kr,pvoceiv, 
to preach, the second verb, to evangelize, to announce the glad tidings of the kingdom, 
adds the idea of a proclamation of grace as the prevailing character of His teaching. 
The Twelve accompanied Him. What a strange sight this little band presented, pass- 
ing through the cities and country as a number of members of the heavenly kingdom, 
entirely given up to the work of spreading and celebrating salvation ! Had the 
world ever seen anything like it ? Among the women who accompanied this band, 
filling the humble office of servants, Luke makes special mention first of Mary, sur- 
named Magdalene. This surname is probably derived from her being originally from 
Magdala, a town situated on the western shore of the sea of Galilee (Matt. 15 : 39), 
the situation of which to the north of Tiberias is still indicated at the present day by 
a village named El-Megdil {the tower). The seven demons (Mark 16 : 9) denote with- 
out doubt the culminating point of her possession, resulting from a series of attacks, 
each of which had aggravated the evil (Luke 11 : 24-26). It is without the least 
foundation that tradition identifies Mary Magdalene with the penitent sinner of chap. 
7. Possession, which is a disease (see 4 : 33), has been wrongly confounded with a 
state of moral corruption. The surname, of Magdala, is intended to distinguish this 
Mary from all the others of this name, more particularly from her of Bethany. 
Ghuza was probably intrusted with some ofiice in the household of Herod Antipas. 
Might he not be that (3aoiMic6s, court lord, whose son Jesus had healed (John 4), and 
who had believed with all his house ? We know nothing of Susanna and the other 
women. AtriveS reminds us that it was in the capacity of servants that they accom- 
panied Him. Aiaicoveiv, to serve, here denotes pecuniary assistance, as Rom. 15 : 25, 
and also the personal attentions which might be rendered by a mother or sisters (ver. 
21). The reading of the T. R., avrfi, who served Him, may be a correction in accord- 
ance with Matt. 2? : 55, Mark 15 : 41 ; but the reading avrols, who served tliem, is the 
more probable one according to ver. 1 (the Twelve) and 4 : 39. 

What a Messiah for the eye of flesh, this being living on the charity of men ! But 
what a Messiah for the spiritual eye, this Son of God living on the love of those to 
whom His own love is giving life ! What an interchange of good offices between 
heaven and earth goes on around His person ! 

7. The Parable of 'the Sower : 8:4-18. — The preceding passage indicated a change 
in the mode of the Lord's outward life. The following passage indicates a change in 
His mode of teaching ; a crisis, therefore, has been reached. The sequel will make 
us acquainted with its nature. Before this, Jesus had spoken a few parables 
(5 : 36-39, 6 : 39, 47, et seq.). From now, and for a very long time, He habitually makes 
use of this method. The parable possesses the double property of making an indelible 
impression of the truth on the mind of him who is able to perceive it through the 
figure in which it is clothed, and of veiling it from the observation of the inattentive 
or indolent hearer whose mind makes no effort to penetrate this covering. It is thus 
admirably fitted for making a selection from the hearers. The term parable (from 
itapafiaXkeiv, to place side by side) denotes a form of instruction in which, by the side of 
the truth, is placed the image which represents it. This is also the meaning of 



234 COMMEK"TAKY ON ST. LUKE. 

« 

irapoifua, a path by the side of the high road. The parable bears a close resemblance 
to the fable : but it differs from it in two respects, one of substance, the other of form. 
While the fable refers to the relations of men with one another, and to the moral 
laws which regulate these relations, the parable deals with man's relations with God, 
and with the lofty principles by which they are governed. The loftier sphere in 
which the parable moves determines the difference of form which distinguishes it 
from the fable. The fable partakes of a humorous character ; it is quite allowable, 
therefore, in it to make plants and animals speak. The aim of the parable is too 
serious to comport with such fictions. There must be nothing in the picture to violate 
probability. Animals and material objects may be employed in the parable (sheep, 
leaven) ; but they must not assume a character contrary to their actual nature. The 
parable was the most natural mode of teaching for Jesus to adopt. Living in the 
incessant contemplation of the divine world, which lay open to His inward sense, 
finding Himself at the same time also in constant intercourse with the external world, 
which He observed with intelligent and calm attention, He was necessarily led to 
make constant comparisons of these two spheres, and to perceive the innumerable 
analogies which exist between them. 

The first parable He uttered that was fully w T orked out, appears to have been this 
of the sower. Matthew makes it the opening parable of the large collection in chap. 
13. Mark assigns it a similar place at the head of a more limited collection, chap. 
4. It is the only one besides that of the vine-dressers, a parable belonging to our 
Lord's last days, which has been preserved in all the three Syn. In all three, the 
general explanation, which Jesus gives His disciples once for all, as to why He 
employs this form of teaching, is connected with the account of this parable. It 
appears, therefore, that it was the first complete similitude that He offered them. 
Moreover, it was the one which seems to have struck the disciples the most, and 
which was most frequently told in the oral tradition ; this explains its reproduction 
by our three evangelists. 

The following passage contains : 1st. The parable (vers. 4-8) ; 2d. The explana- 
tions given by Jesus respecting this mode of teaching (vers. 9 and 10) ; 3d. The expo- 
sition of the parable (vers. 11-15) ; Wh. A warning to the apostles as to the course 
they must pursue in regard to truths which Jesus teaches them in this way (vers. 
16-18). 

1st. Vers. 4-8.* The Parable. — Matthew and Mark place this parable after the 
visit of the mother and brethren of Jesus (Matt. 13 : 1 ; Mark 4 : 1). In Luke it 
immediately precedes the same narrative (ver. 19, et seq.). This connection may be 
the result of a real chronological relation, or of a moral relation as well ; comp. ver. 
15, " those who keep the word and bring forth fruit," with ver. 21, " those who hear 
the word of God and practise it." "We might make rQv sTurcopevo/LievGjv, coming 
togetlier unto Him, the complement of ox^ov, a multitude, by giving nai the sense of 
even. But this construction is forced the two genitives, are parallel. Luke's mean- 
ing is : " As a great multitude was gathered about Him, and as it was continually 
increasing, owing to fresh additions, which were arriving more or less from every 
city. " This prefatory remark contains a great deal. Jesus goes through the country 
stopping at every place ; the Twelve are His immediate attendants ; the cities are 

* Yer. 4. &. some Mnn., cvvovroq. Ver. 6. B. L. R. Z., KareireaEV instead of 
e-nsaev. Ver. 8. Almost all the Mjj. read ei$ instead of em, which is the reading of 
T. R. with D. and some Mnn. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 235 

emptied, so to speak ; their entire populations accompany Him. We have evidently 
reached a crisis. But the more the number of His hearers increases, the more clearly 
Jesus sees that the time has come to set some sifting process to work among them ; 
if, on the one hand, it is necessary to draw the spiritual into closer attachment, on 
the other, it is of importance to keep the carnal at a distance. The parables, in gen- 
eral, have this tendency ; that of the sower, by its very meaning, has a direct appli- 
cation to this state of things. It appears from Matthew and Mark that Jesus was 
seated in a vessel on the sea-shore, and that from this kind of pulpit He taught the 
people who stood upon the banks. He could therefore easily discern the various 
expressions of the persons composing the multitude. The art. 6 before cxeipuv desig- 
nates that one of the servants who has been intrusted with this work. Gess points 
out the contrast between this sower, who commences the work of establishing the 
kingdom of God by means of the Word alone, and the Messiah, as pictured by John 
the Baptist, having His fan in His hand. Jesus divides His hearers into four classes, 
and compares them to four kinds of soil, of which the surrounding country furnished 
Him with illustrations at the very time He was speaking. From the edge of the 
lake the soil rises very rapidly ; now, on such slopes, it easily happens that the higher 
portion of a field has only a thin layer of mould, while, going down toward the plain, the 
bed of earth becomes deeper. Hence the differences indicated. The first soil 
{by the icayside) is the part nearest the path which is freely used by passers-by. The 
second (on the rock, according to Luke ; in stony places, in Matthew and Mark) does 
not denote, as is often thought, a soil full of stones ; but, as is well expressed by 
Luke, and confirmed by the explanation, because there was no depth of earth (Matthew 
and Mark), that portion of the field where the rock is only covered with a thin layer 
* of earth. The third is a fertile soil, but already choke-full of the seeds of thorns 
and briers. There remains the good soil (Mark and Matthew, Ka/Sj). This last land 
is neither hard as the first, nor thin as the second, nor unclean as the third ; it is soft, 
deep, and free from other seeds. The four prep, employed by Luke well describe 
these different relations of the seed with the soil : irapd, by the side : eiri, upon ; ev 
fztacp, in the midst; els, into (eni in the T. R., ver. 8, has only very insufficient 
authorities). 

The fate of the seed is determined by the nature of the soil. On the first soil it 
does not even spring up. The (pvev, having sprung up (vers. 6-8), is passed over in 
silence in the 5th verse. Not having germinated, the seed is destroyed by external 
causes, the passers-by and the birds. Matthew and Mark mention only the latter. 
On the second soil the seed springs up ; but the root, immediately meeting with the 
rock, cannot develop itself in proportion to the stem, and, as soon as the sun has 
dried up the thin layer of earth, the plant perishes. The seed on the third soil grows 
into ear ; but briers choke it before the grain is formed. Thus in the first case there 
are two external causes of destruction ; in the second, an external and an internal 
cause ; in the third, a single cause, and this altogether internal. On the fourth soil 
the plant successfully accomplishes the entire cycle of vegetation. Luke only men- 
tions the highest degree of fertility, a hundred-fold. Matthew and Mark speak of 
lesser degrees ; Mark in an ascending, and Matthew in a descending order. How 
puerile and unworthy of earnest men these trifling variations would be, if the evan- 
gelists worked upon a common document ! 

The Lord invites the serious attention of the multitude to this result ; £<j>6vei, He 
raises His voice [He cried, A.Y.], these are the words which He emphasizes. He 



236 COMME^TAEY CW ST. LUKE. 

endeavors to awaken that inward sense for divine things, without which religious 
teaching is only an empty sound. The design of Jesus is, first of all, to show that 
He is not deceived by the sight of this crowd, which is apparently so attentive ; then 
to put His disciples on their guard against the expectations which such a large con- 
course might create in their minds ; lastly, and more than all, to warn His hearers of 
the perils which threatened the holy impressions they were then experiencing. 

2d. Vers. 9 and 10.* The Parables in general. — "And His disciples asked Him, 
saying, What might this parable be ? 10. And He said, Unto you it is given to 
know the mysteries of the kingdom of God : but to others in parables ; that seeing 
they might not see, and hearing they might not understand." The question of the 
disciples referred solely to the meaning of the preceding parable ; but Jesus takes 
advantage of it to give them a general explanation of this mode of teaching. It is 
the same in Mark, who only adds this detail : when they icere alone with Him. In Mat- 
thew the question of the disciples is altogether general : " Wherefore speakest Thou 
unto them in parables?" This form of the question appears to us less natural. The 
reply of Jesus is more extended in Matthew. He quotes in extenso the prophecy of 
Isaiah (chap. 6) to which Luke's text alludes, and which Mark incorporates into the 
discourse of Jesus. Bleek professes to find in the because of Matthew (13: 13) a less 
harsh thought than the in order that of Mark and Luke. He is wrong ; the thought 
is absolutely the same. In both cases, Jesus distinctly declares that the object of 
His parables is not to make divine truths intelligible to all, but to veil them from 
those who are indifferent to them. And it is for this very reason that He avails Him- 
self of this mode of teaching just from this time. By such preaching as the Sermon 
on the Mount He had accomplished the first work of His spiritual fishing ; He had 
cast the net. Now begins the second, the work of selection ; and this He accom- 
plishes by means of teaching in parables. As we have seen, the parable possesses the 
double property of attracting some, while it repels others. The veil which it throws 
over the truth becomes transparent to the attentive mind, while it remains impenetra- 
ble to the careless. The opposition between these two results is expressed in Luke 
by these words designedly placed at the beginning of the phrase, to you and to others. 
It is the same in Matthew, to you and to those ; in Mark, more forcibly still, to you 
and to those who are without. The perf. <5 edorat does not refer to any antecedent decree 
(the aor. would have been required), but to the actual condition of the disciples, 
which renders them fit to receive the revelation of divine things. It is the inward 
drawing due to divine teaching, of which Jesus speaks in John 6. The term mystery, 
in Scripture, denotes the plan of salvation, in so far as it can only be known by man 
through a higher revelation (jivia, to initiate). Used in the plural (the mysteries), it 
denotes the different parts of this great whole. These are the heavenly things of 
which Jesus spoke to Nicodemus (John 3 : 12), and which He contrasted with the 
earthly things which He had preached at the commencement. The verb understood 
before h irapa(3olaU is Xalelrai. But how, when God makes a revelation, can it be 
His will not to be understood, as Isaiah says (chap. 6), and as is repeated here by 
Jesus ? That is not, as Riggenbach says, either His first will or His last. It is an 
intermediate decree ; it is a chastisement. When the heart has failed to open to the 
first beams of truth, the brighter beams which follow, instead of enlightening, dazzle 

* Ver. 9. &. B. D. L. R Z. some Mnn. Syr. ItP leri <i ue , omit AeyovreS before rig, 
Yer. 10. &. R. some Mnn., aicovotooiv instead of cwiuaiv. 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 237 

and blind it ; and this result is willed by God ; it is a judgment. Since Pharaoh 
refuses to humble himself under the first lessons he receives, subsequent lessons shall 
harden him ; for, if he is unwilling to be converted himself, he must at least subserve 
the conversion of others by the conspicuousness of his punishment. The Jewish 
people themselves, in the time of Isaiah, were just in this position. God makes them 
feel this by calling them, not my people, but this people. God already sees that the 
nation is incapable of fulfilling the part of an apostle to the world which had departed 
from Him. This part it shall accomplish, nevertheless ; only it shall not be by its 
missionary action, but by its ruin. This ruin, therefore, becomes necessary ; and 
because this ruin is necessary (Matthew), or in order that it may take place (Mark and 
Luke), Israel must be hardened. A similar state of things recurred at the .period in 
Jesus' ministry which we have now reached. Israel rejected as a nation the light 
which shone in Jesus ; and this light covered itself under the veil of the parable. But 
through this veil it sent out still more brilliant rays into the hearts of those who, like 
His disciples, had welcomed with eagerness its first beams. The terms, see, hear, 
refer to the description in the parable ; not seeing, and not understanding, to its real 
meaning. 

3d. Vers. 11-15.* The Explanation of the Parable. — The expression, Now the par- 
able is this (ver. 11), signifies that the essence of the picture is not in its outward form, 
but in its idea. The point of resemblance between the word and the seed is the 
living power contained in a vehicle which conceals it. By the word Jesus doubtless 
means primarily His own teaching, but He also comprehends in it any preaching 
that faithfully represents His own. Among the multitude Jesus discerned four kinds 
of expression : countenances expressing thoughtlessness and indifference ; faces full 
of enthusiasm and delight ; others with a care-worn, preoccupied expression ; and 
lastly, expressions of serene joy, indicating a full acceptance of the truth that was 
being taught. In the explanation which follows, the word is sometimes identified 
with the new life which is to spring from it, and the latter with the individuals them- 
selves, in whom it is found. This accounts for the strange expressions : those which 
are sown by the wayside (ver. 12 ; comp. vers. 13, 14, 15) ; these have no root (ver. 13) ; 
they are choked (ver. 14). The first class contains those who are wholly insensible to 
religion, who are conscious of no need, have no fear of condemnation, no desire of 
salvation, and consequently no affinity with the gospel of Christ. In their case, 
therefore, the word becomes a prey to external agents of destruction. Only one 
is mentioned in the application, the devil (Luke), Satan (Mark), the evil one (Matthew), 
who employs various means of diverting their minds, in order to make them forget 
what they have heard. Had not Jesus believed in the existence of Satan, He would 
never have spoken of him as a reality answering to the figure of the parable. 01 
anovovTEc, who hear, must be thus explained : " who hear, and nothing more." This 
implies Matthew's do not understand. 

The second are the superficial but excitable natures, in whom imagination and 
sensibility for the moment make up for the absence of moral feeling. They are 
charmed with the novelty of the Gospel, and the opposition which it offers to received 
ideas. In every awakening, such men form a considerable portion of the new con- 
verts. But in their case the word soon comes into conflict with an internal hin- 

* Ver. 12. 5*. B. L. U. Z. some Mnn., aicovoavTeS instead of aKovovreS. Ver. 13. 
&* D. F w . X., tijv rerpav instead of T7/S Trerpas. 



238 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

dranee : a heart of stone which the humiliation of repentance and the love of holiness 
have never broken. Thus it finds itself given over to external agents of destruction, 
such as temptation (Luke), tribulation, and persecution (Matthew and Mark) ; the 
enmity of the rulers, the rage of the Pharisees, the danger of excommunication, in a 
word, the necessity of suffering in order to remain faithful. Those who have merely 
sought for spiritual enjoyment in the Gospel are therefore overcome. In ver. 13 the 
verb eloiv must be understood, and ol brav must be made the predicate : are those who, 
when . . . The ol at the end of the verse is a development of ovtol, and signifies 
who, as such. 

The third are persons with a measure of earnestness, but their heart is divided ; 
they seek salvation and acknowledge the value of the gospel, but they are bent also 
upon their earthly welfare, and are not determined to sacrifice everything for the 
truth. These persons are often found at the present day among those who are re- 
garded as real Christians. Their worldly-mindedness maintains its ground notwith- 
standing their serious interest in the gospel, and to the end hinders their complete 
conversion. The miscarriage of the seed here results from an inward cause, which 
is both one and threefold : cares (in the case of those who are in poverty), riches (in 
those who are making their fortune), and the pleasures of life (in those who are 
already rich). These persons, like Ananias and Sapphira, have overcome the fear of 
persecution, but, like them, they succumb to the inward obstacle of a divided heart. 
TlopevofiEvoL, go forth, describes the bustle of an active life, coming and going in the 
transaction of business (2 Sam. 3 : 1). It is in this verse especially that the seed is 
identified with the new life in the believer. The form differs completely in the 
three Syn. 

In the fourth their spiritual wants rule their life. Their conscience is not asleep, 
as in the first ; it is that, and not, as in the case of the second, imagination or sensibil- 
ity, which rules the will ; it prevails over the earthly interests which have sway in 
the third. These are the souls described by Paul in Rom. 7. 'Ev napdia and rbv 
7.6yov depend on the two verbs aKovoavres kitexovclv combined, which together denote 
one and the same act : to hear and to keep, for such persons, are the same thing. The 
term perseverance refers to the numerous obstacles which the seed has had to over 
come in order to its full development ; comp. the naO' vttojuovtjv epyov ayaQov (Rom. 
2 : 7). Jesus was certainly thinking here of the disciples, and of the devoted women 
who accompanied Him. Luke makes no mention either in the parable or the ex- 
planation of the different degrees of fertility indicated by Matthew and Mark, and the 
latter mention them here also in a contrary order. 

We do not think that a single verse of this explanation of the parable is compati- 
ble with the hypothesis of the employment of a common text by the evangelists, or 
of their having copied from each other ; at least it must be admitted that they allowed 
themselves to trifle, in a puerile and profane way, with the words of the Lord. The 
constant diversity of the three texts is, on the other hand, very naturally explained, 
if their original source was the traditional teaching. 

4ih. Vers. 16-18.* Practical Conclusion. — '* No man, when he hath lighted a can- 
dle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed ; but setteth it on a candle- 
stick, that they which enter in may see the light. 1 7. For nothing is secret that shall 

* Ver. 16. The mss. vary between eiri Ivxvias and eiri ri\v Avx'viav (a reading de- 
rived from Matthew and Mark, and from 11:33). Ver. 17. S*. B. L. Z., o ov firj 
■yvuoBr) instead of o ov yvcjoBvoerai. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 239 

» 

not be made manifest ; neither anything hid that shall not be known and come 
abroad. 18. Take heed therefore how ye hear ; for whosoever hath, to him shall be 
given ; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth 
to have. ' ' Bleek can perceive no connection between these reflections and the pre- 
ceding parable. But they are closely connected with the similar reflections in vers. 
9 and 10. There is even a designed antithesis between the growth of the light (ver. 
16 and 17) and the increase of the darkness (ver. 10). Jesus is speaking to the dis- 
ciples. The word which is translated candle denotes simply a lamp, just a saucer 
rilled with oil in which a wick is placed — the mode of lighting most used in the East. 
It may therefore be placed without any danger under such a vessel as a bushel, 
which serves at once for measure, table, and dish among the poor, or under the divan 
(jclivrj), a bench furnished with cushions and raised from the floor from one to three 
feet, on which it is customary to rest while engaged in conversation or at meals, 
Beds properly so called are not used in the East ; they generally lie on the ground, 
on wraps and carpets.* The lighted lamp might denote the apostles, whom Jesus 
enlightens with a view to make them the teachers of the world. Covering their light 
would be not putting them into a position of sufficient influence in regard to other 
men ; and setting it on a candlestick would signify, conferring on them the apostolic 
office, in virtue of which they will become the light of the world. Those who see 
the light on entering the house would be their converts from the Jews and hea- 
then. Ver. 17 would be an allusion, as in 12 : 3, to that law according to which 
truth is to be fully revealed to the world by the apostolic preaching. Lastly, the 
18th verse would refer to that growth of inward light which is the recompense of the 
preacher for the faithfulness of his labors. But it is just this last verse which upsets 
the whole of this interpretation. For, 1. With this meaning, Jesus ought to have 
said, not : Take heed Iww ye hear, but, how ye -preach. 2. To ham, in the sense of 
the 18th verse, is not certainly to produce fruits in others, but to possess the truth 
one's self. We must therefore regard the term Xvxvos, the lamp, as denoting 
the truth concerning the kingdom of God which Jesus unveils to the apostles 
in His parables. If He clothes the truth in sensible images, it is not to render 
it unintelligible (to put it under a bushel) ; on the contrary, in explaining 
it to them, as He has just done, He places it on the candlestick ; and they 
are the persons who are illuminated on entering into the house. All will gradu- 
ally become clear to them. While the night thickens over Israel on account of 
its unbelief, the disciples will advance into even fuller light, until there is nothing 
left in the plan of God (His mysteries, ver. 11) which is obscure or hidden (ver 17). 
The heart of Jesus is lifted up at this prospect. This accounts for the poetical 
rhythm which always appears at such moments. Here we see why it behoves the 
disciples to hear with the greatest care ; it is in order that they may really hold what 
He gives them, like the good soil which receives and fertilizes the seed (ver. 18). He 
alone who assimilates His teaching by an act of living comprehension, who really 
hath (the opposite of seeing without seeing, ver. 10), can receive continually more. 
Acquisitions are made only by means of, and in proportion to, what is already pos- 
sessed. The Spirit Himself only makes clear what has been kept (John 14 : 26). If, 
therefore, any one among them contents Himself with hearing truth without ap- 
propriating it, by and by he will obtain nothing, and at last even lose everything. 

* Felix Boret, " Voyage en Terre-Sainte, " pp. 348 and 349. 



240 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

Mark (4 : 21-25) says : that which he hath; Luke : that which lie thinketh he hath. It 
comes to the same thing ; for, as to what is heard without comprehending it, it is 
equally true to say that he hath (in a purely external sense), or that he thinks he hath 
(in the real sense of the word have). Comp. Luke 19 : 26. This very apophthegm is 
found several times in Matthew. It expresses one of the profoundest laws of the 
moral world. Baur and Hilgenfeld thought they found in the word donei, thinks he 
hath, a censure of Luke on the haughty pretensions of the Twelve ! Our evangelists 
could never have anticipated that they would ever have such perverse interpreters. 
Nothing could more effectually allay any undue elation which the sight of these 
multitudes might excite in the minds of the disciples, than their being reminded in 
this way of their responsibility. The similar reflections in Mark (4 : 25) are too differ- 
ent in form to have been drawn from the same source. 

Mark goes on to narrate the parable of the ear of corn, which he alone records. 
In Matthew there are six parables respecting the kingdom of God given along with 
that of the sower. They form an admirable whole. After the foundation of the 
kingdom described in the parable of the sower, there follows the mode of its develop- 
ment in that of the tares ; then its power, presented under two aspects (extension and 
transformation) — in those of the gram of mustard seed and the leaven ; next, its in- 
comparable value in the parables of the treasure and the pearl ; lastly, its consum- 
mation in that of the net. Is this systematic plan to be attributed to Jesus ? I think 
not. He was too good a teacher to relate in this way seven parables all in a breath.* 
On the other hand, did He only utter on this occasion the parable of the sower ? Cer- 
tainly not, for Matthew says respecting this very time (13:3): "And He spake 
many things unto them in parables," and Mark (4:2): "He taught them many 
things in parables." Probably, therefore, Jesus spoke on this day, besides the par- 
able of the sower, that of the tares (Matthew), and that of the ear of corn (Mark), the 
images of which are all taken from the same sphere, and which immediately follow 
the first, the one in one Gospel, the other in the other. As to the other parables, 
Matthew has united them with the preceding, in accordance with his constant method 
of grouping the sayings of our Lord around a given subject. Such different arrange- 
ments do not appear compatible with the use of the same written document. 

8. Visit of the Mother and Brethren of Jesus : 8 : 19-21. — We should have been igno- 
rant of the real object of this visit, unless, in this as in several other cases, Mark's 
narrative had come in to supplement that of the other two. According to Mark, a 
report had reached the brethren of Jesus that He was in a state of excitement border- 
ing on madness ; it was just the echo of this accusation of the Pharisees : " He 
casteth out devils by Beelzebub." Comp. Mark 3:21,22. His brethren therefore 
came, intending to lay hold on Him (npa.Tr/Gai avrov, ver. 21), and take Him home. 
Matthew also connects this visit (12 : 46) with the same accusation. In John, the 
brethren of Jesus are represented in a similar attitude in regard to Him (7:5): " His 
brethren also did not believe on Him." As to Mary, it is not said that she shared the 
sentiments of her sons. But when she saw them set out under the influence of such 
feelings, she would naturally desire to be present at the painful scene which she an- 
ticipated would take place. Perhaps also, like John the Baptist, she was unable to 
explain to herself the course which her. Son's work was taking, and was distracted 
between contrary impressions. 

* I abide by this statement, notwithstanding the contrary assertion of Gess, 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 241 

Vers. 19-21.* The word without (ver. 20) might be understood to mean : " out- 
side the circle which surrounded Jesus." But Mark expressly mentions a house in 
which he was receiving hospitality (ver. 20), and where a large crowd was seated 
around Him (vers. 32 and 34) : Are these brethren of Jesus younger sons of Joseph 
and Mary, or sons of Joseph by a previous marriage ; or are they cousins of Jesus, 
sons of Cleopas (the brother of Joseph), who would be called his brethren, as having 
been brought up in the house of their uncle Joseph ? We cannot discuss this ques- 
tion here. (See our " Commentary on the Gospel of John," ii. 12). One thing is 
certain, that the literal interpretation of the word brother, placed, as it is here, by 
the side of the word mother, is the most natural. The answer of Jesus signifies, not 
that family ties are in His eyes of no value (comp. John 19 : 26), but that they are 
subordinate to a tie of a higher and more durable nature. In those women who 
accompanied Him, exercising over Him a mother's care (vers. 2 and 3), and in those 
disciples who so faithfully associated themselves with Him in His work, He had 
found a family which supplied the place of that which had deliberately forsaken 
Him. And this new spiritual relationship, eternal even as the God in whom it was 
based, was it not superior in dignity to a relationship of blood, which the least acci- 
dent might break ? In this saying He expresses a tender and grateful affection for 
those faithful souls whose love every day supplied the place of the dearest domestic 
affection. He makes no mention of father : this place belongs in His eyes to God 
alone. We see how the description of the actual circumstances, given by Mark, 
enables us to understand the appropriateness of this saying. This fact proves that 
Luke knew neither the narrative of this evangelist, nor that of the alleged proto- 
Mark. How could he in sheer wilfulness have neglected the light which such a nar- 
rative threw upon the whole scene ? 

9. TJie Stilling of the Storm : 8 : 22-25. — We come now to a series of narratives 
which are found united together in the three Syn. (Matt. 8 : 18 et seq. ; Mark 4 : 35 
et seq.) ; the storm, the demoniac, the daughter of Jairus, together with the woman 
afflicted with an issue of blood. From the connection of these incidents in our three 
Gospels, it has frequently been inferred that their authors made use of a common 
written source. But, 1. How, in this case, has it come to pass that this cycle fills 
quite a different place in Matthew (immediately after the Sermon on the Mount) from 
that which it occupies in the other two ? And 2. How came Matthew to intercalate, 
between the return of Jesus and the account of the daughter of Jairus, two incidents 
of the greatest importance — the healing of the paralytic (9 : 1 et seq.), and the call of 
Matthew — with the feast and the discourse which follow it (ver. 9 et seq.), incidents 
which in Mark and Luke occupy quite a different place ? The use of a written source 
does not accord with such independent arrangement. It is a very simple explanation 
to maintain that, in the traditional teaching, it was customary to relate these three 
facts together, probably for the simple reason that they were chronologically 
connected, and that to this natural cycle there were sometimes added, as in 
Matthew, other incidents which did not belong historically to this precise time. That 
which renders this portion particularly remarkable is, that in it we behold the mirac- 
ulous power of Jesus at its full height : power over the forces of nature (the storm) ; 
over the powers of darkness (the demoniacs) ; lastly, over death (the daughter of 
Jairus). 

* Ver. 20. ». B. D. L. A. Z. some Mnn. Syr. It. omit leyovruv. Ver. 21. The 
Alex, omit avrov. 



242 COMMUisTAliY ON ST. LUXE. 

Vers. 22-25.* Miracles of this kind, while manifesting the original power of man 
over nature, are at the same time the prelude of the regeneration of the visible world 
which is to crown the moral renovation of humanity (Rom. 8). From Matthew's 
narrative it might be inferred that this voyage took place on the evening of the same 
day on which the Sermon on the Mount was spoken. But, on the other .hand, too 
many things took place, according to Matthew himself, for the limits of a single day. 
Mark places this embarkation on the evening of the day on which Jesus spoke the 
parable of the sower ; this note of the time is much more probable. Luke's indica- 
tion of the time is more general : on one of tliese days, but it does not invalidate Mark's. 
The object of this excursion was to preach the gospel in the country situated on the 
other side of the sea, in accordance with the plan drawn out in 8:1. According to 
Mark, the disciples' vessel was accompanied by other boats. When they started, the 
weather was calm, and Jesus, yielding to fatigue, fell asleep. The pencil of Mark 
has preserved this never-to-be-forgotten picture : the Lord reclining on the hinder 
part of the ship, with His head upon a pillow that had been placed there by some 
friendly hand. It often happens on lakes surrounded by mountains, that sudden and 
violent storms of wind descend from the neighboring heights, especially toward even- 
ing, after a warm day. This well-known phenomenon is described by the word 
naTefir), came dozen, f In the expression cwe-Klrjpovvro, they were filled, there is a con- 
fusion of the vessel with those whom it carries. The term h-Kiarara is peculiar to 
Luke ; Mark says dtdaomhe, Matthew Kvpts. How ridiculous these variations would 
be if all three made use of the same document ! The 24th verse describes one of the 
sublimest scenes the earth has ever beheld : man, calmly confident in God, by the 
perfect union of his will with that of the Almighty, controlling the wild fury of the 
blind forces of nature. The term k-KZTifxricE, rebuked, is an allusion to the hostile 
character of this power in its present manifestation. Jesus speaks not only to the 
wind, but to the water ; for the agitation of the waves (k2,v6uv) continues after the 
hurricane is appeased. 

In Mark and Luke, Jesus first of all delivers His disciples from danger, then He 
speaks to their heart. In Matthew, he first upbraids them, and then stills the storm. 
This latter course appears less in accordance with the wisdom of the Lord. But why 
did the apostles deserve blame for their want of faith ? Ought they to have allowed 
the tempest to follow its course, in the assurance that with Jesus with them they ran 
no danger, or that in any case He would awake iD time ? Or did Jesus expect that 
one of them, by an act of prayer and commanding faith, would still the tempest ? 
It is more natural to suppose that what He blames in them is the state of trouble 
and agitation in which He finds them on awaking. "When faith possesses the heart, 
its prayer may be passionate and urgent, but it will not be full of trouble. There is 
nothing surprising, whatever any one may say, in the exclamation attributed to those 
who witnessed this scene (ver. 25) : first, because there were other persons there be- 
sides the apostles (Mark 4 : 36) ; next, because such incidents, even when similar 

* Ver. 24. & a X. I\ several Mnn. Syr cur . ItP 161 '"!"^ omit ETaarara Eiriarara. D. 
reads nvpie icvpie. &. E. F. G. H. some Mnn. It aliq ., eiravaaTo instead of eiravoavTo. 
K. A. II. several Mnn. add fieyaTirj to yalrjvr] (taken from the parallel passages). 

f On these hurricanes, to which the Lake of Gennesareth is particularly exposed, 
comp. W. Thompson, " The Land and the Book," London, 1868, p. 375 (cited by M. 
Furrer) : " Storms of wind rush wildly through the deep mountain gorges which 
descend from the north and north-east, and are not only violent, but sudden ; they 
often take place when the weather is perfectly clear." 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 243 

occurrences have been seen before, always appear new ; lastly, because this was the 
first time that the apostles saw their Master contend with the blind forces of nature. 

Strauss maintains that this is a pure myth. Keim, in opposition to him, alleges 
the evident antiquity of the narrative (the sublime majesty of the picture of Jesus, 
the absence of all ostentation from His words and actions, and the simple expression 
of wonder on the part of the spectators). The narrative, therefore, must have some 
foundation in fact, in some natural incident of water-travel, which has been idealized 
in accordance with such words as Ps. 107:23, et seq., and the appeal to Jonah 
(1 :4-6) : " Awake, O sleeper." There, says criticism, you see how this history was 
made We should rather say, how the trick was done. 

10. Tlie Healing of the Demoniac: 8:26-39. — This portion brings before us a 
storm no less difficult to still, and a yet more striking victory. Luke and Mark men- 
tion only one demoniac ; Matthew speaks of two. The hypothesis of a common 
written source here encounters a difficulty which is very hard for it to surmount. 
But criticism has expedients to meet all cases : according to Holtzmann, Matthew, 
who had omitted the healing of the demoniac at Capernaum, here repairs this omis- 
sion," by grouping the possessed who had been neglected along with this new case" 
(p. 255). This is a sample of what is called at the present day critical sagacitf. As 
if the evangelists had no faith themselves in what they wrote with a view to win the 
faith of others ! Why should if be deemed impossible for the two maniacs to have 
lived together, and for the healing of^ only one of the two to have presented the striking 
features mentioned in the following narrative ? However it was, we have here a proof 
of the independence of Matthew's narratives on the one hand, and of those of Mark 
and Luke on the other. 

Vers. 26-29.* The Encounter. — There are three readings of the name of the inhabi- 
tants, and ud fortunately they are also found in both the other Syn. Epiphanius 
mentions the following forms : Tepyeayvtiv in Mark and Luke (but in it is probable 
that, in the case of Luke, we should read Tepaoyvtiv in this Father) ; Tadapyvfiv in 
Matthew (Tepyeoaiw in some manuscripts). It would seem to follow from a passage 
in Origen (" Ad. Joh. " t. vi. c. 24) that the most widely- diffused reading in his time 
was Tspaoyvciv, that Tadapyv&v was only read in a small number of manuscripts, 
and that Tepyeoyvuv was only a conjecture of his own. He states that Gerasa is a city 
of Arabia, and that there is neither sea nor lake near it ; that Gadara, a city of 
Judaea, well known for its warm baths, has neither a deep-lying piece of water with 
steep banks in its neighborhood, nor is there any sea ; while, near the lake of Tiberias 
the remains are to be seen of a city called Gergesa, near which there is a precipice 
overlooking the sea, and at which the place is still shown where the herd of swine 
cast themselves down. The mss. are divided between these readings after the most 
capricious fashion. The great majority of the Mnn. in Matthew read Tepaoyvfiv ; in 
Mark and Luke Tepyeoyvtiv. The Latin documents are almost ail in favor of 
Tepyeoyvuv. Tischendorf (8th edition) reads TaSapyvuv in Matthew, Tepaoyvuv in 

* Ver. 26. T. R., with A. R. r. A. A. and 10 other Mjj. many Mnn. Syr., reads 
Tadapyvcov. B. D. It. Vg., Tepaoyvuv. &. L. X. Z. some Mnn. Cop. Epiph., 
Tepyeaevuv. Ver. 27. J*. B. E. Z. some Mnn. omit avru. $. B. , tx^ v instead of eixev. 
& B. L. Z. some Mnn., nai %povto inavuv instead of en xpovov inavcov nai, Ver. 28. &. 
B. L. X. Z. some Mnn. Syr. It. omit icai before avanpatag. Ver. 29. B. F. M. A. Z., 
irapyyyeiXe instead of napyyyeXTiev, which is the reading of T. R. with 16 Mjj. several 
Mnn. Syr., etc. Ver. 29. The mss. vary between edeojueiTo and edec/uevero. The 
mss. vary between rov dat/uovoS and rov daipoviov. 



244 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

Mark, Tepyeorivuv m Luke. Bleek thinks that the primitive Gospel on which, in his 
opinion, our three Syn. are based, read Tepaoijvuv, but that, owing to the improbability 
of this reading, it was changed by certain copyists into TaSaprjvuv, and by Origen into 
TepyeaTjvciv. Looking simply at the fact, this last name appears to him to agree with 
it best. In fact, Gerasa was a 'large city situated at a considerable distance to the 
south-east, on the borders of Arabia ; and the reading Tepaorjvtiv can only be admitted 
by supposing that the district dependent on this city extended as far as to the sea of 
Galilee, which is inadmissible, although Stephen of Byzantium calls Gerasa a city 
of Decapolis. Oadara is nearer, being only a few leagues from the south-east end of 
the sea of Galilee. Josephus calls it the metropolis of the Peraea ; Pliny reckons it 
among the cities of Decapolis. Its suburbs might extend as far as the sea. But it is 
highly natural to suppose, that these cities, being so well known, the copyists sub- 
stituted their names for that of Gergesa, which was generally unknown. It is a 
confirmation of this view, that the existence of a town of this name is attested not 
only by Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome, but by the recent discovery of ruins bearing 
the name of Gersa or Khersa, toward the embouchure of the Wady Semakh. The 
course of the walls is still visible, according to Thompson (p. 375). This traveller 
also says, that " the sea is so near the foot of the mountain at this spot, that animals 
having once got fairly on to the incline could not help rolling down into the water" 
(p. 377). Wilson (Athenaeum, 1866, i. p. 438) stafes that this place answers all the 
conditions of the Bible narrative.* The true reading, therefore, would be Tepyeorjvuv 
or Yepyeaaiuv, This name so little known must have been altered first into Yepaarjvdv, 
which has some resemblance to it, and then into Ta6ap7jvu>v.\ 

On the demoniacs, see 4 : 33. The 27th verse gives a description of the demoniac, 
which is afterward finished in the 29th. This first description (ver. 27) only contains 
that which presented itself immediately to the observation of an eye-witness of the 
scene. The second and fuller description (ver. 29) is accounted for by the command 
of Jesus, which, to be intelligible, required a more detailed statement of the state of 
the possessed. This interruption, which is not found in Mark, reflects very natu- 
rally the impression of an eye-witness ; it demonstrates the independence of the 
respective narratives of Matthew and Luke. The plural dai/uovia (demons), explained 
afterward (ver. 30) by the afilicted man himself, refers doubtless to the serious nature 
and multiplicity of the symptoms — melancholy, mania, violence, occasioned by a 
number of relapses (see on 8 : 3 and 11 : 24-26). His refusing to wear clothes or 
remain in a house is connected with that alienation from society which characterizes 
such states. The Alex, reading : " who for a long while past had worn no clothes," 
is evidently an error. The note of time cannot refer to a circumstance altogether so 
subordinate -as that of clothing. The Levitical uncleanness of the tombs insured to 
this man the solitude he sought. The sight of Jesus appears to have produced an 
extraordinary impression upon him. The holy, calm, gentle majesty, tender compas- 
sion, and conscious sovereignty which were expressed in the aspect of our Lord, 

* We cite these two authors from M. Konrad Furrer : " Die Bedeutung der bibl. 
Geographie," p. 19. 

f M. Heer has recently proposed (" Der Kirchenfreund," 13th May, 1870), a view 
which would more easily account for the reading Gerasa found in the mss. J>y 
Origen • The original name of the place Gergesa, abbreviated into Gersa, might be 
altered in popular speech into Gerasa, which it would be necessary not to confound 
with the name of the Arabian city. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 245 

awakened in him, by force of contrast, the humbling consciousness of his own state 
of moral disorder. He felt himself at once attracted and repelled by this man ; this 
led to a violent crisis in him, which revealed itself first of all in a cry. Then, like 
some ferocious beast submitting to the power of his subdue?, he rims and kneels, 
protesting all the while, in the name of the spirit of which he is still the organ, 
against the power which is exerted over him. Luke says : TrpooirircTeiv, not -kpogkweIv 
(Mark). The former term does not imply any religious feeling. On the expression : 
WJiat have 1 to do with thee ? see on 4 : 24. The name Jesus is Wanting in Matthew, 
and it looks strange. How did he know this name ? Perhaps he had heard Jesus 
talked of, and instinctively recognized Him. Or perhaps there was a supernatural 
knowledge appertaining to this extraordinary state. The expression : Son of the most 
high God is explained by the prevalence of polytheism in those countries where there 
was a large heathen population. Josephus calls Gadara a Greek city. We must not 
infer from this that this man was a heathen. 

In his petition, ver. 28, the demoniac still identifies himself with the alien spirit 
which holds him in his power. The torment which he dreads is being sent away into 
the abyss (ver. 31) ; Matthew adds, before the time. The power of acting on the world, 
for beings that are alienated from God and move only within the void of their own 
subjectivity, is a temporary solace to their unrest. To be deprived of this power is 
for them just what a return to prison is for the captive. If we read irap^yyeiXe, we 
must give ihis aor. the meaning of a plus perfect : For He had commanded. But MS. 
authority is rather in favor of the imperf. Tcap^yeXkev : "For He was commanding 
him.'''' This tense indicates a continuous action which does not immediately pro- 
duce its effect. The demon's cry of distress, Torment me not, is called forth by the 
strong and continued pressure which the command of Jesus put upon him. This 
imperf. corresponds with Mark's eleye yap. We find in these two analogous forms 
the common type of the traditional narration. The for, which follows, explains this 
imperfect. The evil did not yield instantly, because it had taken too deep root. 
liVVTipTraKEi, it kept him in its possession. HoaaoIs xp° voc $ mav signify for a long time 
past or oftentimes. With the second sense, there would be an allusion to a series of 
relapses, each of which had aggravated the evil. 

Vers. 30-38.* The Cure. — To this prayer, in which the victim became involuntarily 
the advocate of his tormentor, Jesus replies by putting a question : He asks the afflicted 
man his name. For what purpose ? There is nothing so suitable as a calm and 
simple question to bring a madman to himself. Above all, there is no more natural 
way of awakening in a man who is beside himself the consciousness of his own per- 
sonality, than to make him tell his own name. A man's name becomes the expres- 
sion of his character, and a summary of the history of his life. Now, the first con- 
dition of any cure of this afflicted man was a return to the distinct feeling of his own 
personality. There was at this time a word which, more than any other, called up 
the idea of the resistless might of the conqueror under whom Israel was then suffer- 
ing oppression. This was the word Legion. The sound of this word called up the 
Shought of those victorious armies before which the whole world bowed down. So 
it is by this term that this afflicted man describes the power which oppresses him, 

* Ver. 30. &. B. Syr sch . It. omit Aeyuv. Ver. 31. The mss. vary between napinalovv 
and napenaTiei. Ver. 32. The mss. vary between PoGKOfievq and Poofco/uevuv. & c B. C. 
Ic Z. some Mnn. ItP leri( i ue , irapmaAeaav instead of napeKa?,ovv. 



246 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

and with which he still confounds himself. The expression, many demons, is ex- 
plained by the multiplicity and diversity of the symptoms (ver. 29). To this answer 
the demoniac adds, in the name of his tyrant, a fresh request. The demon under- 
stands that he must release his prey ; but he does not want to enter forthwith into a 
condition in which contact with terrestrial realities would be no longer possible to 
him. In Mark there is here found the strange expression: "not to send them out 
of the country," which may mean, to the desert, where unclean but not captive spirits 
were thought to dwell, or into the abyss, whence they went forth to find a temporary 
abode upon the earth. The sequel shows that the second meaning must be preferred. 
Jesus makes no answer to this request. His silence is ordinarily regarded as signify- 
ing consent. But the silence of Jesus simply means that He insists on the command 
which He has just given. When He wishes to reply in the affirmative — as, for in- 
stance, at the end of ver. 82 — he does so distinctly. This explanation is confirmed 
by Matthew, " If thou cast us out . . ." Their request to enter into the swine 
only refers, therefore, to the way by which they were suffered to go into the abyss. 
What is the explanation of this request, and of the permission which Jesus accorded 
to it ? As to these evil spirits, we can understand that it might be pleasant to them, 
before losing all power of action, to find one more opportunity of doing an injury. 
Jesus, on his part, has in view a twofold result. The Jewish exorcists, in "order to 
assure their patients that they were cured, were accustomed to set a pitcher of water 
or some other object in the apartment where the expulsion took place, which the 
demon took care to upset in going out. What they were accustomed to do as charla- 
tans, Jesus sees it good to do as a physician. The identification of the sick man with 
his demon had been a long-existing fact of consciousness (vers. 27 and 29). A de- 
cisive sign of the reality of the departure of the evil power was needed to give the 
possessed perfect assurance of his deliverance. Besides this reason, there was prob- 
ably another. The theocratic feeling of Jesus had been wounded by the sight of 
these immense herds of animals which the law declared unclean. Such an occupa- 
tion as this showed how completely the line of demarcation between Judaism and 
paganism was obliterated in this country. Jesus desired, by a sensible judgment, to 
reclaim the people, and prevent their being still more unjudaized. 

The influence exerted by the demons on the herd was in no sense a possession. 
None but a moral being can be morally possessed. But we know that several species 
of animals are accessible to collective influences — that swine, in particular, readily 
yield to panics of terror. The idea that it was the demoniac himself who frightened 
them, by throwing himself into the herd, is incompatible with the text. Mark, 
whose narrative is always distinguished by the exactness of its details, says that the 
number of the swine was about two thousand. An item of his own invention, says 
De Wette ; an appendix of later tradition, according to Bleek ; here we see the neces- 
sary consequence of the critical system, according to which Mark is supposed to 
have made use of the text of the other two, or of a document common to them all. 
The number 2000 cannot serve to prove the individual possession of the swine by 
the demons {legion, ver. 30), for a legion comprised 4000 men. The question has been 
asked, Had Jesus the right to dispose in this way of other people's property ? One 
might as well ask whether Peter had the right to dispose of the lives of Ananias and 
Sapphira ! It is one of those cases in which the power, by its very nature, guaran- 
tees the right. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 247 

Vers. 34-39.* The Effect produced. — First, on the people of the country ; next, on 
the afflicted man. The owners of the herd dwelt in the city and neighborhood. 
They came to convince themselves with their own eyes of the loss of which they 
had been informed by the herdsmen. On reaching the spot they beheld a sight 
which impressed them deeply. The demoniac was known all through the country, 
and was an object of universal terror. They found him calm and restored. So great 
a miracle could not fail to reveal to them the power of God, and awaken their con- 
science. Their fears were confirmed by the account given them of the scene which 
had just occurred by persons who were with Jesus, and had witnessed it (ol Idovrec, 
ver. 36). These persons were not the herdsmen ; for the cure was wrought at a con- 
siderable distance from the place where the herd was feeding (Matt. 8 : 30). They 
were the apostles and the people who had passed over the sea with them (Mark 4 : 36). 
The nai, also, is undoubtedly authentic ; the latter account was supplementary to 
that of the herdsmen, which referred principally to the loss of the herd. The fear 
of the inhabitants was doubtless of a superstitious nature. But Jesus did not wish 
to force Himself upon them, for it was still the season of grace, and grace limits it- 
self to making its offers. He yielded to the request of the inhabitants, who, regard- 
ing Him as a judge, dreaded further and still more terrible chastisement at His hand. 
He consents, therefore, to depart from them, but not without leaving them a wit- 
ness of His grace in the person of him who had become a living monument of it. The 
restored man, who feels his moral existence linked as it were to the person of Jesus, 
begs to be permitted to accompany Him. Jesus was already in the ship, Mark tells 
us. He does not consent to this entreaty. In Galilee, where it was necessary to 
guard against increasing the popular excitement, He forbade those He healed publish- 
ing abroad their cure. But in this remote country, so rarely visited by Him, and 
which He was obliged to leave so abruptly, He needed a missionary to testify to the 
greatness of the Messianic work which God was at this time accomplishing for His 
people. There is a fine contrast between the expression of Jesus : ' ' What God hath 
done for thee," and that of the man : " What Jesus had done for him." Jesus re- 
fers all to God ; but the afflicted man could not forget the instrument. The whole 
of the latter part of the narrative is omitted in Matthew. Mark indicates the field of 
labor of this new apostle as comprising not his own city merely, but the whole of the 
Decapolis. 

Volkmar applies here his system of allegorical interpretation. This incident is 
nothing, according to him, but the symbolical representation of the work of Paul 
among the Gentiles. The demoniac represents the heathen world ; the chains with 
which they tried to bind him are legislative enactments, such as those of Lycurgus 
and Solon ; the swine, the obscenities of idolatry ; the refusal of Jesus to yield to the 
desire of the restored demoniac, when he wished to accompany Him, the obstacles 
which Jewish Christians put in the way of the entrance of the converted heathen 
into the Church ; the request that Jesus would withdraw, the irritation caused in 
heathen countries by the success of Paul (the riot at Ephesus, ex. gr.). Keim is op- 
posed to this unlimited allegorizing, which borders, indeed, on absurdity. He very 
properly objects, that the demoniac is not even (as is the case with the Canaanitish 

* Ver. 34. The mss. vary between yeyovoS and yzyzvrmtvov. A.tte1Qovt£$, in the 
T. R., is only read in a few Mnn. Ver. 35. &* B., efyWev instead of e^e^TivQei. 
Ver. 36. 1*. B. C. D. L. P. X. some Mnn. and Vss. omit mi before ol lSovtcS. Ver. 
37. The mss. vary between rjpuTrjaav (Byz.) and rjpuTTjaev (Alex.). 5** L. P. X., 
repyeoijvuv. B. C. D. It. Vg\, Tepao7}vuv instead of Tadapqvuv, which is the reading 
of T. R. with 14 Mjj. many Mnn. Syr. 



248 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

woman) spoken of as a heathen ; that the precise locality, so little known, to which 
the incident is referred, is a proof of its historical reality ; that the request to Jesus to 
leave the country is a fact without any corresponding example, which does not look 
like imitation, but has the very features of truth. In short, he only objects to the 
episode of the swine, which appears to him to be a legendary amplification. But is 
it likely that the preachers of the gospel would have admitted into their teaching an 
incident so remarkable, if it could be contradicted by the population of a whole dis- 
trict, which is distinctly pointed out ? If possession is only, as Keim thinks, an 
ordinary malady, this conclusion is certainly inevitable. But if there is any degree 
of reality attaching to the mysterious notion of possession, it would be difficult to 
determine d priori what might not result from such a state. The picture forms a 
whole, in which each incident implies all the rest. The request made to Jesus to 
leave the country, in which Keim acknowledges a proof of authenticity, is only ex- 
plained by the loss of the swine. Keim admits too much or too little. Either Volk- 
mar and his absurdities, or the frank acceptance of the narrative— this is the only 
alternative (comp. Heer's fine work, already referred to, " Kirchenf reund, " Nos. 10 
and 11, 18T0). 

11. The Raising of Jairus' Daughter : 8 : 40-56. — In Mark and Luke, the follow- 
ing incident follows immediately on the return from the Decapolis. According to 
Luke, the multitude which He had left behind Him when He went away had not dis- 
persed ; they were expecting Him, and received Him on His landing. According to 
Mark, it collected together again as soon as His arrival was known. In Matthew, 
two facts are interposed between His arrival and the resurrection of Jairus' daughter 
— the healing of the paralytic of Capernaum, and the calling of the Apostle Matthew. 
As the publican's house was probably situated near the port, the second of these 
facts might certainly have happened immediately on His landing ; but, in any case, 
the feast given by the publican could not have taken place until the evening, and 
after what occurred in the house of Jairus. But the same supposition will not apply 
to the healing of the paralytic, which must be assigned to quite another time, as is 
the case with Mark and Luke. 

Vers. 40-42.* The Bequest. — The term aTrodsxecBai indicates a warm welcome. 
Mark and Luke mention the age of the young girl, which Matthew omits. The cir- 
cumstance of her being an only daughter, added by Luke, mOre fully explains the 
father's distress. Criticism, of course, does not fail to draw its own conclusions 
from the same circumstance being found already in 7 : 12. As if an only son and an 
only daughter could not both be found in Israel ! According to Mark and Luke, the 
young girl was dying ; in Matthew she is already dead. This evangelist tells the 
story here, as elsewhere, in a summary manner ; he combines in a single message the 
arrival of the father, and the subsequent arrival of the messenger announcing her 
death. The process is precisely similar to that already noticed in the account of the 
healing of the centurion's servant. Matthew is interested simply in the fact of the 
miracle and the word of Jesus. 

Vers. 43-48. f The Interruption. — The preposition 7rp6s, in ivpoaavaluaaaa^ expresses 
the fact that, in addition to these long sufferings, she now found herself destitute of 

* Ver. 40. & ca . B. L. R. some Mnn. Syr., ev 6e to instead of eyevero 6e ev tu. 
Ver. 42. C. D. P , iropeveaBaL instead of virayeiv. C. L. U., avvedltBov for cvvenvtyov. 

f Ver. 43. All the Mjj., tarpon; instead of eis tarpovS, which is the reading of T. 
R. with some Mnn. Ver. 45. The mss. vary between oc aw avru (Alex.) and oi fiera 
avrov (T. R. Byz.). &. B. L. some Mnn. omit the words nai leyec . . . fiov. 
Ver. 46. J*. B. L., t^ekrfkvBvLav instead of e&Movoav. Ver. 47. 9 Mjj. Syr. It. Vg. 
omit avru after amiyyertev. Ver. 48. &, B. T). L. Z. some Mnn. and Vss. omit Qapcet, 



COMMENTAEY ON ST. LUKE. 249 

resources. Mark expresses with a little more force the injury which the physicians 
had done her. Hitzig and Holtzinann maintain that Luke, being a physician him- 
self, intentionally tones down these details from the proto-Mark. We find nothing 
here but Mark's characteristic amplification. The malady from which this woman 
suffered rendered her Levitically unclean ; it was even, according to the law, a suffi- 
cient justification for a divorce (Lev. 15 : 25 ; Deut. 24 : 1). Hence, no doubt, her 
desire to get cured as it were by stealth, without being obliged to make a public 
avowal of her disorder. The faith which actuated her was not altogether free from 
superstition, for she conceived of the miraculous power of Jesus as acting in a purely 
physical manner. The word icpuoicedov, which we translate by the hem (of the gar- 
ment), denotes one of the four tassels or tufts of scarlet woollen cord attached to the 
four corners of the outer robe, which were intended to remind the Israelites of their 
law. Their name was zitzit (Num. 15 : 38). As this robe, which was of a rectangular 
form, was worn like a woman's shawl, two of the corners being allowed to hang- 
down close together on the back, we see the force of the expression came behind. 
Had it been, as is ordinarily understood, the lower hem of the garment which she at- 
tempted to touch, she could not have succeeded, on account of the crowd which sur- 
rounded Jesus. This word Kp&onedov, according to Passow, comes from nepaq and 
irsSov, the forward part of a plain ; or better, according to Schleusner, from KeKpa/xevov 
eis iredov, that which hangs down toward the ground. Both Mark and Luke date the cure 
from the moment that she tuuched. Matthew speaks of it as taking place a little later, 
and as the effect of Jesus' word. But this difference belongs, as we shall see, to Mat- 
thew's omission of the following details, and not to any difference of view as to the 
efficient cause of the cure. 

The difficulty about this miracle is, that it seems to have been wrought outside 
the consciousness and will of Jesus, and thus appears to be of a magical character. 
In each of Jesus' miracles there are, as it were, two poles : the receptivity of the 
person who is the subject of it, and the activity of Him by whom it is wrought. The 
maximum of action in one of these factors may correspond with the minimum of 
action in the other. In the case of the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda, in 
whom it was necessary to excite even the desire to be cured, as well as in the raising 
of the dead, the human receptivity was reduced to its minimum. The activity of the 
Lord in these cases reached its highest degree of initiation and intensity. In the 
present instance it is the reverse. The receptivity of the woman reaches such a de- 
gree of energy that it snatches, as it were, the cure from Jesus. The action of Jesus 
is here confined to that willingness to bless and save which always animated Him in 
His relations with men. He did not, however, remain unconscious of the virtue 
which He had just put forth ; but He perceives that there is a tincture of superstition 
in the faith which had acted in this way toward Him ; and, as Rlggenbach admirably 
shows (" Leben Jesu," p. 442), His design in what follows is to purify this incipient 
faith. But in order to do this it is necessary to discover the author of the deed. 
There is no reason for not attributing to Jesus the ignorance implied in the question, 
" Who touched me ?" Anything like feigning ignorance ill comports with the can- 
dor of His character. Peter shows His usual forwardness, and ventures to remon- 
strate with Jesus. But, so far from this detail implying any ill-will toward this 
apostle, Luke attributes the same fault to the other apostles, and equalty without any 
sinister design, since Mark does the same thing (ver. 31). Jesus does not stop to re- 
buke His disciples ; He pursues His inquiry ; only He now substitutes the assertion. 



250 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

Somebody hath touched me, for the question, Who touched me ? Further, He no longer 
lays stress upon the person, but upon the act, in reply to the observation of Peter, 
which tended to deny it. The verb aipaoBai, to feel about, denotes a voluntary, de- 
liberate touch, and not merely an accidental contact. Mark adds that, while putting 
this question, He cast around Him a scrutinizing glance. The reading e^slrjhiQvlav 
(Alex.) signifies properly : " I feel myself in the condition of a man from whom a 
force has been withdrawn." This is somewhat artificial. The received reading, 
h^eWovaav, merely denotes the outgoing of a miraculous power, which is more simple. 
Jesus had been inwardly apprised of the influence which He had just exerted. 

The joy of success gives the woman courage to acknowledge both her act and 
her malady ; but the words, before all the people, are designed to show how much this 
avowal cost her. Luke says trembling, to which Mark adds fearing ; she feels afraid 
of having sinned against the Lord by acting without His knowledge. He reassures 
her (ver. 48), and confirms her in the possession of the blessing which she had in 
some measure taken by stealth. This last incident is also brought out by Mark (ver. 
34). The intention of Jesus, in the inquiry He had just instituted, appears more es- 
pecially in the words, Thy faith hath saved thee ; thy faith, and not, as thou wast 
thinking, the material touch. Jesus thus assigns to the moral sphere (in Luke and 
Mark as well as in Matthew) the virtue which she referred solely to the physical 
sphere. The word Qdpasi, take courage, which is wanting in several Alex., is prob- 
ably taken from Matthew. The term saved implies more than the healing of the 
body. Her recovered health is a link which henceforth will attach her to Jesus as 
the personification of salvation ; and this link is to her the beginning of salvation in 
the full sense of the term. The words in Matthew, " And the woman was healed 
from that same hour," refer to the time occupied by the incident, taken altogether. 

Eusebius says (H. E. vii. 18, ed. Lcemmer) that this woman was a heathen and 
dwelt at Paneas, near the source of the Jordan, and that in his time her house was 
still shown, having at its entrance two brass statues on a stone pedestal. One repre- 
sented a woman on her knees, with her hands held out before her, in the attitude of 
a suppliant ; the other, a man standing with his cloak thrown over his shoulder, and 
his hand extended toward the woman. Eusebius had been into the house himself, 
and had seen this statue, which represented, it was said, the features of Jesus. 

Vers. 49-56.* T7ie Prayer granted.— We may imagine how painful this delay had 
been for the father of the child. The message, which just at this moment is brought 
to him, reduces him to despair. Matthew, in his very summary account, omits all 
these features of the story ; and interpreters, like De Wette, who maintain that this 
Gospel was the source of the other two, are obliged to regard the details in Mark and 
Luke as just so many embellishments of their own invention ! The present xioTtve, 
in the received reading, signifies : " Only persevere, without fainting, in the faith 
which thou hast shown thus far." Some Alex, read the aor. marevaov : "Only 
exercise faith ! Make a new effort in view of the unexpected difficulty which has 

* Ver. 49. ». B. L. X. Z. some Mnn. omit avru. &. B. D., ^/cen instead of nv- 
Ver. 50. 6 Mjj. some Mnn. Syr. It. omit heyov after av™. B. L. Z., tuotevoov in- 
stead of ttloteve. Ver. 51. T. R., with D. V. some Mnn., uc&Buv instead of elQuv. 
The mss. vary between nva and ovdsva. The mss. vary between luawrjv k<xl IciKofiov 
and lancopov nai luavvrjv (taken from Mark). Ver. 52. 8 Mjj. some Mnn. Syr. It., ov 
yap instead of ovk before aneQavev. Ver. 54. 2*. B. D. L. X. some Mnn. and Vss. 
omit eK/3a?io)v e& iravras nai, which is the reading of T. B. with all the rest (taken 
from Matthew). 



COMMENTARY OS ST. LUKE. 251 

arisen." This second meaning seems to agree better with the position of uovov i only, 
before the verb. Perhaps the other reading is taken from Mark, where all the author- 
ities read Triareve. 

The reading of the T. K., elaeW6v, having entered, ver. 51, is not nearly so well 
supported as the reading e?<,66v, having come. But with either reading there is a dis- 
tinction observed between the arrival (elB6v) or entrance (elasWuv) into the house and 
the entrance into the chamber of the sick girl, to which the elaeXBetv which follows 
refers : " He suffered no man to go in." What obliges us to give this sense to this 
infinitive, is the mention of the mother among the persons excepted from the pro- 
hibition ; for if here also entrance into the house was in question, this would suppose 
that the mother had left it, which is scarcely probable, when her daughter had only 
just expired. Jesus' object in only admitting just the indispensable witnesses into 
the room, was to dimmish as far as possible the fame of the work He was about to 
perform. As to the three apostles, it was necessary that they should be present, in 
order that they might be able afterward to testify to what was done. 

The following scene, vers. 52, 53, took place at the entrance of the sick chamber. 
The navreS, all, are the servants, neighbors, relations, and professional mourners 
{avlTjrai, Matthew) assembled in the vestibule, who also wanted to make their way 
into the chamber. Olshausen, Neander, and others infer from Jesus' words, that the 
child was simply in a lethargy ; but this explanation is incompatible with the expres- 
sion eidoreg, knowing well, ver. 53. If this had been the idea of the writer, he would* 
have employed the word 6oKovvreg, believing that . . . On the rest of the verse, 
see 7 : 14. By the words, " She is not dead, but sleepeth," Jesus means that, in the 
order of things over which He presides, death is death no longer, but assumes the 
character of a temporary slumber (John 11 : 11, explained b}^ ver. 14). Baur main- 
tains that Luke means, ver. 53, that the apostles also joined in the laugh against 
Jesus, and that it is with this in view that the evangelist has chosen the general term 
all (ver. 52 ; Evaug. p. 458). In this case it would be necessary to include among 
the 7rd^r£f the father and mother!! The words, having put them all out, in the 
T. R, are a gloss derived from Mark and Matthew. It has arisen in this 
way : Mark expressly mentions two separate dismissals, one of the crowd and 
nine apostles at the entrance of the house, and another of the people be- 
longing to the house not admitted into the chamber of the dead (ver. 40) As 
in Luke, the word enter (ver. 51) had been wrongly referred to the first of these 
acts, it was thought necessary to mention here the second, at first in the margin, and 
afterward in the text, in accordance with the parallel passages. The command to 
give the child something to eat (ver. 55) is related by Luke alone. It shows the per- 
fect calmness of the Lord wiien performing the most w^onderful work. He acts like 
a physician who has just felt the pulse of his patient, and gives instructions respect- 
ing his diet for the day. Mark, who is fond of local coloring, has preserved the 
Aramaean form of the words of Jesus, also the graphic detail, immediately the child 
began to walk about. In these features of the narrative we recognize the account of 
an eye-witness, in whose ear the voice of Jesus still sounds, and who still sees the 
child that had been brought to life again moving about. Matthew omits all details. 
The fact itself simply is all that has any bearing on the Messianic demonstration, 
which is his object. Thus each follows his own path while presenting the common 
substratum of fact as tradition had preserved it. On the prohibition of Jesus, ver. 
56, see on 5 : 14 and 8 : 39. 



252 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

According to Volkniar, the woman with an issue would be only the personifica- 
tion of the believing Jews, in whom their rabbis (the physicians of ver. 43) had been 
unable to effect a moral cure, but whom Jesus will save after having healed the 
heathen (the return from Gadara) ; and the daughter of Jairus represents the dead 
Judiasm of the synagogue, which the gospel alone can restore to life. Keim acknowl- 
edges the insufficiency of symbolism to explain such narratives. He admits the cure 
of the woman as a fact, but maintains that she herself, by her faith, was the sole 
contributor toward it. In the resurrection of the daughter of Jairus, he sees either a 
myth, modelled after the type of the resurrection of the Shunammite widow's son by 
Elisha (a return to Strauss), or a natural awaking from a lethargy (a return to 
Paulu^). But is not the local coloring quite as decided in this narrative as in that of 
the possessed of Gadara, of which Keim on this ground maintains the historical 
truth ? And as to an awakening from a lethargy, what has he to reply to Zeller ? 
(See p. 218, note.) 

FOURTH CYCLE. — 9 : 1-50. 

From the Mission of the Twelve to the Departure from Galilee. 

This cycle describes the close of the Galilean ministry. It embraces six narra- 
tions : 1st. The mission of the Twelve, and the impression made on Herod by the 
public activity of Jesus (9 : 1-9). 2d. The multiplication of the loaves (vers. 10-17). 
3d. The first communication made by Jesus to His apostles respecting His approach- 
ing sufferings (vers. 18-27). Uh. The transfiguration (vers. 28-36). 5th. The cure 
of the lunatic child (vers. 37-43$). 6th. Some circumstances which preceded the 
departure from Galilee (vers. 4:6b to 50). 

1. TJie Mission of the Tioelve, and the Fears of Herod: 9 :l-9. — The mission with 
which the Twelve were intrusted marks a twofold advance in the work of Jesus. 
From the first Jesus had attached to Himself a great number of pious Jews as disciples 
(a first example occurs, vers. 1-11 y a second, ver. 27) ; from these He had chosen 
twelve to form a permanent college of apostles (6 •. 12 et seq.). And now this last 
title is to become a more complete reality than it had hitherto been. Jesus sends 
them forth to the people of Galilee, and puts them through their first apprenticeship 
in their future mission, as it were, under His own eyes. With this advance in their 
position corresponds another belonging to the work itself. For six months Jesus 
devoted Himself almost exclusively to Galilee. The shores of the lake of Geimesaret, 
the western plateau Decapolis itself on the eastern side, had all been visited by Him 
in turn. Before this season of grace for Galilee comes to an end, He desires to ad- 
dress one last solemn appeal to the conscience of this people on whom such length- 
ened evangelistic labors have been spent ; and He does it by this mission, which He 
confides to the Twelve, and which is, as it were, the close of His own ministry. 
Mark also connects this portion with the preceding" cycle by introducing between the 
two the visit to Nazareth (6 : 1-6), which, as a last appeal of the Saviour to this place, 
so dear to his heart, perfectly agrees with the position of affairs at this time. 

Matthew, chap. 10, also mentions this mission of the Twelve, connecting with it 
the catalogue of apostles and a long discourse on the apostolate, but he appears to 
place this fact earlier than Luke. Keim (ii. p. 308) thinks that Luke assigns it a 
place in nearer connection with the mission of the seventy disciples, in order that this 
second incident (a pure invention of Luke's) may be more certain to eclipse the 
former. In imputing to Luke this Machiavellian design against the Twelve, Keim 
forgets two things : 1. That, according to him, Luke invented the scene of the elec- 
tion of the Twelve (6) with the view of conferring on their ministry a double and 



COMMENTARY OIn ST. LUKE. 253 

triple consecration. After having had recourse to invention to exalt them, we are to 
suppose that he now invents to degrade them 1 2. That the three Syn. are agreed in 
placing this mission of the Twelve just after the preceding cycle (the tempest, 
Gadara, Jairus), and that as Matthew places this cycle, as well as the Sermon on the 
Mount, which it closely follows, earlier than Luke, the different position which the 
mission of the Twelve occupies in the one from that which it holds in the other, 
results very naturally from this fact. It is to be observed that Mark, whose account 
of the sending forth of the Twelve fully confirms that of Luke, is quite independent 
of it, as is proved by a number of details which are peculiar to him (6 : 7, two and 
two ; ver. 8, save one staff only ; ibid... put on two coats ; ver. 13, they anointed with oil). 

1st. Vers. 1, 2.* The Mission. — There is something greater than preaching — this 
is to make preachers ; there is something greater than performing miracles — this is 
to impart the power to perform them. It is this new stage which the work of Jesus 
here reaches. lie labors to raise His apostles up to His own level. The expression 
cvynaheca/xevos, having called together, indicates a solemn meeting ; it expresses more 
than the term TrpooKalelaQai, to call to Him, used in Mark and Matthew. What would 
Baur have said if the first expression had been found in Matthew and the second in 
Luke, when throughout Luke's narrative as it is he sees an intention to depreciate 
this scene in comparison with that which follows, 10 : 1, et seq, ? 

In Jewish estimation, the most divine form of power is that of working miracies. 
It is with this, therefore, that Jesus begins : dvvc/iis, the power of execution ; invoice, 
the authority which is the foundation of it ; the demons will therefore owe them 
obedience, and will not fail, in fact, to render it. These two terms are opposed to 
the anxious and labored practices of the exorcists. Tldvra : all the different maladies 
coming under this head — melancholy, violence, mania, etc. . . . Qepaneveiv, to 
heal, depends neither on diva^ nor kijovola, but on eSokev, He gave them ; there is no 
kiovaia in regard to diseases. Such will be their power, their weapon. But these 
cures are not the end ; they are only the means designed to lend support to their 
message. The end is indicated in ver. 2. This is to proclaim throughout Galilee 
the coming of the kingdom of God, and at the same time to make the people feel the 
grave importance of the present time. It is a return to the ministry of John the 
Baptist, and of our Lord's at its commencement (Mark 1 : 15). This undertaking 
was within the power of the Twelve. " To preach and to heal" means " to preach 
while healing." Only imagine the messengers of the Lord at the present day travers- 
ing our country with the announcement of His second coming being at hand, and 
confirming their message b}^ miracles. What a sensation such a mission would pro- 
duce ! According to Mark, the Lord sent them two and two, which recalls their 
distribution into pairs, Luke 6 : 13-15 ; Matt. 10 : 2-4. 

2d. Vers. 3-5. f Their Instructions. — " And He said unto them, Take nothing for 
your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, neither money ; neither have 
two coats apiece. 4. And whatsoever house ye enter into, there abide and thence 

* Ver. 1. T. R, with E. F. H. U. several Mnn. It ali *., reads //cruras avrov after 
dude/cci (taken from Matthew) ; 11 Mjj. 100 Mnn. Syr. omit these words ; J*. C* L. 
X. A. Z. some Mnn. I tali i. substitute airooroTiovs for them. Ver. 2. B. Syr cur omit 
rouS aaQevovvraS ; J*. A. D. L. X. read tovS acQevetS. 

f Ver. 3. &. B. C* D. E* F. L. M. Z. several Mnn. Syr. It. Eus. read papdov 
instead of pafidovs, Which is the reading of T. R with 10 Mjj. many Mnn., but which 
appears taken from Matthew. &. B. C* F. L. Z. omit ava. Ver. 4. Vg., according 
to C, adds fin after eKetQev, Ver. 5. 2*. B. C. D. L. X. Z. some Mnn. It ali< *. omit 
tcai. 



254 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

depart. 5. And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake 
off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them. ' ' Ver. 3 contains 
instructions for their setting out ; ver, 4 instructions respecting their arrival and 
stay ; ver. 5, instructions for leaving each place. 

Ver. 3. The feeling of confidence is the key to the injunctions of this verse : 
" Make no preparations, such as are ordinarily made on the eve of a journey ; set out 
just as you are. God will provide for all your wants." The reply of the apostles, 
22 : 35, proves that this promise was not unfulfilled. ~M.rjdev, nothing is a general 
negative, to which the subsequent, pyre, neither . . . nor . . . are subordi- 
nate. Mark, who commences with a simple fir/, naturally continues with the negative 
[ir]5e y nor further. Each writer, though expressing the same idea as the other, has 
his own particular wa} T of doing it. Luke says, neither staff, or, according to another 
readmg, neither staves ; Matthew is like Luke ; Mark, . on the contrary, save one staff 
only. The contradiction in terms could not be greater, yet the agreement in idea is 
perfect. For as far as the sentiment is concerned which Jesus wishes to express, it 
Is all one to say, " nothing, not even a staff" (Matthew and Luke), or, " nothing, 
except it be simply (or at most) a staff*' (Mark). Ebrard makes the acute observation 
that in Aramaean Jesus probably said, r\]£*fo EJS "Q* f or ffl • • • a sta ff> an ellip- 
tical form also much used in Hebrew, and which may be filled up in two ways : For, 
if you take a staff, this of itself is quite sufficient (Mark) ; or, this of itself is too much 
(Matthew and Luke). This saying of Jesus might therefore be reproduced in Greek 
either in one way or the other. But in no case could these two opposite forms be 
explained on the hypothesis of a common written Greek source. Bleek, who prefers 
the expression given in Matthew and Luke, does not even attempt to explain how 
that in Mark could have originated. If we read staves, according to a various read- 
ing found in Luke and Matthew, the plural must naturally be applied to the two 
apostles travelling together. Luke says, Do not have each (avd, distributive) two 
coats, that is to say, each a change of coat, beyond what you wear. As they were 
not to have a travelling cloak {^vp a \ they must have worn the second coat on their 
person ; and it is this idea, implied by Luke, that is exactly expressed by Mark, 
"neither put on two ccats." The infinitive ixrj ex nv depends on sine : "He said 
to them . . . not to have. . . ." 

As an unanswerable proof of an opposite tendency in Matthew and Luke, it is 
usual to cite the omission in this passage of the prohibition with which in Matlhew 
this discourse commences (10 :5) : " Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any 
city of the Samaritans enter ye not : but go rather to the Inst sheep of the house of 
Israel." But even in Matthew this prohibition is not absolute (rather) nor permanent-, 
(28:19), "Go and teach all nations"). It was therefore a restriction temporarily' 
imposed upon the disciples, in consideration of the privilege accorded to the Jewish 
nation of being the cradle of the work of the Messiah. With some exceptions, for 
which there were urgent reasons, Jesus Himself was generally governed by this rule. 
He says, indeed, in reference to His earthly ministry : "I am not sent save to the 
lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matt. 15 : 24) ; nevertheless, He is not ignorant 
that it is His mission to seek and to save all that which is lost, and consequently the 
heathen. He affirms it in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, no less than in that of 
Luke. Paul himself does homage to this divine fidelily, when he recalls the fact that 
Jesus, during His earthly life, consented to become a minister of the circumcision (Rom. 
15 : 8). But, 1. What reason could Luke have, in the circle for which he was writ* 
ing, to refer to this restriction temporarily imposed upon the Twelve for the purpose 
of this particular mission ? 2. Mark, no less than Luke, omits these words in the 
account he gives of this discourse, but the harmony of his leaning with that of the 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 255 

first evangelist is not suspected. 3. This last circumstance makes it all but certain 
that this detail had already been omitted in the sources whence these two evangelists 
drew their narratives, and must completely exculpate Luke from all anti-Jewish prej- 
udice in his reproduction of this discourse. 

Ver. 4. On their arrival at a city, they were to settle down in the first house to 
which they obtained access (elc tjv dv, into whatever house), which, however, was not 
to exclude prudence and well-ascertained information (Matthew) ; and, once settled 
in a house, they were to keep to it, and try to make it the centre of a divine work in 
that place, To accept the hospitality of several families in succession would be the 
means of creating rivalry. It would therefore be from this house also, which was 
the first to welcome them, that they would have to set out on leaving the place : " till 
ye go thence." The reading of the Vulg. : " Go not out of this house," is an errone- 
ous correction. In the primitive churches Christian work was concentrated in 
certain houses, which continued to be centres of operation (comp. the expression in 
Paul's epistles, " The church which is in his house"). 

Ver, 5. The gospel does not force itself upon men ; it is an elastic power, pene- 
trating wherever it finds access, and retiring wherever it is repulsed. This was Jesus' 
own mode of acting all through His ministry (8 : 37 ; John 3 : 22) The Jews were 
accustomed, on their return from heathen countries to the Holy Land, to shake off 
the dust from their feet at the frontier. This act symbolized a breaking away from 
all joint-paiticipation in the life of the idolatrous world. The apostles were to act in 
the same way in reference to any Jewish cities which might reject in their person the 
kingdom of God. Kai, even the dust. By this symbolical act they relieved them- 
selves of the burden of all further responsibility on account of the people of that cily. 
The expression, for a testimony, with the complement en' avrovs, upon them, has 
evidently reference to the judgment to come; in Matk the complement avroU, for 
them, makes the testimony an immediate appeal to their guilty consciences. 

3d. Ver. 6. Ihe Result. — Atd, in dirjpxov-o {they icent through), has for its comple- 
ment the country in general, and denotes the extent of their mission. Kara, which 
is distributive, expresses the accomplishment of it in detail : " staying in every little 
town." Only Mark makes mention here of the use of oil in healing the sick — a re- 
markable circumstance, with which the precept, James 5 : 14, is probably connected. 
In Matthew the discourse absorbs the attention of the historian to such a degree 
that he does not say a word, at the end of chap. 10, about the execution of their 
mission. 

This short address, giving the Twelve their instructions, is only the preamble in 
Matthew (chap. 10) to a much more extended discourse, in which Jesus addresses the 
apostles respecting their future ministry in general. Under the influence of his fixed 
idea, Baur maintains that Luke purposely abridged the discourse in Matthew, in order 
to diminish the Importance of the mission of the Twelve, and bring out in bolder 
relief that of the seventy disciples (Luke 10). " We see," he says, " that every word 
here, so to speak, is too much for the evangelist" (" Evangel." p. 435). But, 1. If 
Luke had been animated by the jealous feeling with this criticism imputes to him, 
and so had allowed himself to tamper with the history, would he have put the elec- 
tion of the Twelve (chap. 6), as distinct from their first mission, into such promi- 
nence, when Matthew appears to confound these two events (10:1-4)? Would he 
mention so expressly the success of their mission, as he does, ver. 6, while Matthew 
himself preserves complete silence upon this point ? It is fortunate for Luke that 
their respective parts were not changed, as they might have been and very innocently, 
so far as he is concerned. He would have had to pay smartly for his omission in the 



256 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE, 

hands of such critics ! 2. Mark (6 : 8-10) gives this discourse in exactly the same 
form as Luke, and not at all after Matthew's manner ; he, however, is not suspected 
of any antipathy to the Twelve. It follows from this, that Mark and Luke have 
simply given the discourse as they found it, either in a common document (the 
primitive Mark, according to Holtzmann),or in documents of a very similar charac- 
ter, to which they had access. There is sufficient proof, from a comparison of ver. 
6 in Luke with ver. 13 in Mark, that of these two suppositions the latter must be 
preferred. 3. We may add, lastly, that in the discourse on the apostolate (Matt, 10) it 
is easy to recognize the same characteristics already observed in the Sermon on the 
Mount. It is a composition of a didactic nature on a definite subject, in which frag- 
ments of very different discourses, speaking chronologically, are collected into a 
single discourse. "The instructions it contains," Holtzmann rightly observes (p. 
183), " go far beyond the actual situation, and imply a much more advanced state of 
things. . . ." Bleek, Ewald, and Hilgenfeld also recognize the more evident 
indications of anticipation. We find the true place for the greater part of the passages 
grouped together in Matthew, under the heading, general instructions on the apostolate, 
in Luke 12 and 21. For all these reasons, we regard the accusation brought against 
Luke respecting this discourse as scientifically untenable. 

Uh. Vers. 7-9.* The Fears of Herod. — This passage in Matthew (ch. 14) is sepa- 
rated by several chapters from the preceding narrative ; but it is connected with it 
both chronologically and morally by Luke and Mark (6 : 14, et seq.). It was, in fact, 
the stir created by this mission of the Twelve which brought the fame of Jesus to 
Herod's ears ("' for His name was spread abroad," Mark 6 : 14). The idea of this 
prince, which Luke mentions, that Jesus might be John risen from the dead, is the 
only indication which is to be found in this evangelist of the murder of the fore- 
runner. But for the existence of this short passage in Luke it would have been laid 
down as a critical axiom that Luke was ignorant of the murder of John the Baptist ! 
The saying, Elias or one of the old prophets, meant a great deal — nothing less, in the 
language of that time, than the Messiah is at hand (Matt. 16 : 14 ; John 1 : 21, et seq,) 
In Matthew and Mark the supposition that Jesus is none other than the forerunner 
risen from the dead proceeds from Herod himself. In Luke this apprehension is sug- 
gested to him by popular rumor, which is certainly more natural. The repetition of 
eyu>, I, is, as Meyer says, the echo of an alarmed conscience. The remarkable detail, 
which Luke alone has preserved, that Herod sought to have a private interview with 
Jesus, indicates an original source of information closely connected with this king. 
Perhaps it reached Luke, or the author of the document of which he availed him- 
self, by means of some one of those persons whom Luke describes so exactly, 8 : 3 
and Acts 13 : 1, and who belonged to Herod's household. 

2. The Multiplication of the Loaves : 9 : 10-17. — This narrative is the only one in 
the entire Galilean ministry which is common to the four evangelists (Matt. 14 : 13, 
et seq. ; Mark 6 : 30, et seq. ; John 6). It forms, therefore, an important mark of 
connection between the synoptical narrative and John's. This miracle is placed, in 
all four Gospels alike, at the apogee of the Galilean ministry. Immediately after it, in 
the Syn., Jesus begins to disclose to His apostles the mystery of His approaching suf- 
ferings (Luke 9 : 18-27 ; Matt. 16 : 13-28 ; Mark 8 : 27-38) ; in John this miracle leads 
to an important crisis in the work of Jesus in Galilee, and the discourse which fol- 
lows alludes to the approaching violent death of the Lord (6 : 53-56). 

* Yer. 7. &. B. C. D. L. Z. omit vn' avrov. The same and 10 Mnn., rjyeptir} instead 
of eyqyepTai. Yer. 8. The Alex. t*s instead of e^s. Ver. 9. &. B. C. L. Z. omit cvu 
before anenedHiTiioa, 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 257 

1st. Vers. 10, 11.* The Occasion.— According to Luke, the motive which induced 
Jesus to withdraw into a desert place was His desire for more privacy with His dis- 
ciples that He might talk with them of their experiences during their mission. Mark 
relates, with a slight difference, that His object was to secure them some rest after 
their labors, there being such a multitude constantly going and coming as to leave 
them no leisure. According to Matthew, it was the news of the murder of the fore- 
runner which led Jesus to seek solitude with His disciples ; which, however, could in 
no way imply that He sought in this way to shield Himself from Herod's violence. 
For how could He, if this were so, have entered the very next day into the dominions 
of this sovereign (Matt. 14 : 34 ; comp. with Mark and John) ? All these facts prove 
the mutual independence of the Syn. ; they are easily harmonized, if we only suppose 
that the intelligence of the murder of John was communicated to Jesus by His apos- 
tles on their return from their mission, that it made Him feel deeply the approach of 
His own end (on the relation between these two deaths, see Matt. 17 : 12), and that it 
was while He was under these impressions that He desired to secure a season of retire- 
ment for His disciples, and an opportunity for more private intercourse with them. 

The reading of the T. R. : in a desert place of the city called Bethsa'ida, is the most 
complete, but for this very reason the most doubtful, since it is probably made up out 
of the others. The reading of the principal Alex., in a city called BeiJisaida, omits 
the notion, so important in this passage, of a desert place, probably because it appeared 
inconsistent with the idea of a city, and specially of Bethsaida, where Jesus was so 
well known. The reading of & and of the Cureton Syriac translation, in a desert 
place, is attractive for its brevity. But whence came the mention of Bethsaida in all 
the other variations ? Of the two contradictory notions, the desert and Bethsaida, 
this reading sacrifices the proper name, as the preceding had sacrificed the desert. The 
true reading, therefore, appears to me to be that which is preserved in the Syriac ver- 
sion of Schaaf and in the Italic, in a desert place called Bethsaida. This reading retains 
the two ideas, the apparent inconsistency of which has led to all these alterations of 
the text, but in a more concise and at the same time more correct form than that of 
the received reading. It makes mention not of a city, but of an inhabited country on 
the shore of the lake, bearing the name of Bethsaida. If by this expression Luke had 
intended to denote the cit} r of Bethsaida between Capernaum and Tiberias, on the west- 
ern side of the lake, the country of Peter, Andrew, and Philip, he would be in open 
contradiction to Matthew, Mark, and John, who place the multiplication of the loaves 
on the eastern side, since in all three Jesus crosses the sea the next day to return to 
Galilee (into the country of Gennesareth, Matt. 14 ; 34 ; to Bethsaida, on the western 
shore, Mark 6 : 45 ;f to Capernaum, John 6 : 49). But in this case Luke would con- 
tradict himself as well as the others. For Bethsaida, near Capernaum, being situated 
in the centre of the sphere of the activity of Jesus, how could the Lord repair thither 
with the intention of finding a place of retirement, a desert place ? The meaning of 
the name Bethsaida {fishing place) naturally leads us to suppose that there were several 

* Ver. 10. T, R. with 14 Mjj. several Mnn., tottov eprj/iov TroAeus KaAov/nevrji 
BrjBaatda. & ca . B. L. X. Z. (Tisch. 8th ed.), tto/uv KaAov^evrjv BrjOaacda. Syr 8ch . It. 
Vulg., tottov eprj/xov naAov/uevov BrjQocuda. &* Syr cur ., tottov epr/^ov. Ver. 11. The 
MSS. are divided between de£a/j.evoS aud aTTode^a/ievoi. 

f It is really incredible that Klostermann should have been induced to adopt an 
interpretation so forced as that which connects the words Trpbs BTjOaatddv with the fol- 
lowing proposition, by making them depend on o-oAvctt? ; " until He had sent away 
the people to Bethsaida 1" 



258 COMMEKTAKY OK ST. LUKE. 

fisheries along the lake of this name. The term Bethsa'ida of Galilee, John 12 : 2i, 
confirms this supposition : for this epithet must have served to distinguish this Beth- 
saida from some other. Lastly, Josephus (Antiq. xviii. 2. 1 ; Bell. Jud. iii. 10. 7) and 
Pliny (v. 15) expressly mention another Bethsai'da, situated in Gaulouitis, at the north- 
east extremity of the sea of Galilee, near the embouchure of the Jordan. The tetrarch 
Philip had built (probably in the vicinity of a district of this country called Beth- 
sa'ida), a city, which he had named, after a daughter of Augustus, Bethsaida-Jwfe'as 
the ruins of which Pococke believes he has discovered on a hill, the name of which 
(Telui) seems to signify mountain of Julia (Morgenl. ii. p. 106).* There Jesus would 
more easily find the solitude which He sought. 

The term, virexupvae, He icithdrew, does not inform us whether Jesus made the 
journey on foot or by boat. Luke doubtless did not know ; he confines himself to 
reproducing his information. The three other narratives apprise us that the journey 
was made by water, but that the crowds which, contrary to the intention of Jesus, 
knew of His departure, set out to follow Him neCy, on foot (Matthew and Mark), by 
land, and that the more eager of them arrived almost as soon as Jesus, and even, ac- 
cording to the more probable reading in Mark, before Him. The bend of the lake at 
the northern end approximates so closely to a straight line that the journey from 
Capernaum to Julias might be made as quickly by land as by sea.f The unexpected 
arrival of the people defeated the plan of Jesus. But He was too deeply moved by 
the love shown for Him by this multitude, like sheep without a shepherd (Mark), to 
give them anything but a tender welcome (Se^duevoi, Luke) ; and while these crowds 
of people were flocking up one after another (John 6 : 5), a loving thought ripened in 
His heart. John has disclosed it to us (6 : 4). It was the time of the Passover. He 
could not visit Jerusalem with His disciples, owing to the virulent hatred of which 
He had become the object. In this unexpected gathering, resembling that of the 
nation at Jerusalem, He discerns a signal from on high, and determines to celebrate 
a feast in the desert, as a compensation for the Passover feast. 

2d. Vers. 12-154 TJw Preparations. — It was absolutely impossible to find suffi- 
cient food in this place for such a multitude ; and Jesus feels Himself to some extent 
responsible for the circumstances. This miracle was not, therefore, as Keim main- 
tains, a purely ostentatious prodigy. But in order to understand it thoroughly, it must 

* Winer, " Realworterbuch." 

f Konrad Furrer, in the work cited, p. 24, maintains that John (in his view, the 
romancing Pseudo-John of the second century) places the multiplication of the loaves 
very much more to the south, opposite Tiberias. The proof of this assertion ? John 
6 : 23 : " Howbeit there came other boats from Tiberias nigh unto the place where 
they did eat bread." It appears, according to M. Furrer, that a large lake can only 
be traversed in the direction of its width and through the middle of it ! Pray, why 
could not boats, setting out from Tiberias, visit Bethsa'ida-Julias, where it was un- 
derstood that a great multitude had gone ? Comp. the account which Josephus gives 
of the transport of a body of troops from Tarichese, at the southern extremity of the 
lake, to Julias, and of the transport of Josephus v wounded, from Julias to Tarichese 
(Jos. Vita, § 72). Keim himself says : " The multitude, in order to rejoin Jesus, 
must have made a journey of six leagues round the lake" (on the hypothesis of 
Furrer) ; and how could Jesus say to His disciples, when He sent them away to the 
other side, after the multiplication of the loaves, that He should very soon join them 
(John 6 : 17 ; Matt. 14 : 22 ; Mark 6 : 45) ? It is on such grounds (auf topographische 
Beweise gestutzt) that the evangelist John is made out to be an artist and romancer ! 

X Ver. 12. 8. A. B. C. D. L. R. Z., iropevBevTe; instead of aneMovreS. Ver. 14. 
ft. L. It ali *. Vg., 6e instead of yap. ft. B. C. D. L. R Z., wet ava instead of ava. 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 259 

b&looked at from the point of view presented by John. In the Syn. it is the disciples 
who, as evening draws near, call the attention of Jesus to the situation of the peo- 
ple ; He answers them by inviting them to provide for the wants of the multitude 
themselves. In John it is Jesus who takes the initiative, addressing Himself specially 
to Philip ; then He confers with Andrew, who has succeeded in discovering a young 
lad furnished with some provisions. It is not difficult to reconcile these two ac- 
counts ; but in the first we recognize the blurred lines of tradition, in the second the 
recollections of an eye-witness full of freshness and accuracy. The two hundred 
pennyworth of bread forms a remarkable mark of agreement between the narrative of 
John and that of Mark. John does not depend on Mark ; his narrative is distin- 
guished by too maDy marks of originality. Neither has Mark copied from John ; he 
would not have effaced the strongly marked features of the narrative of the latter. 
From this coincidence in such a very insignificant detail we obtain a remarkable con- 
firmation of all those little characteristics by which Mark's narrative is so often dis- 
tinguished, and which De Wette, Bleek, and others regard as amplifications. 

Jesus has no sooner ascertained that there are five loaves and two fishes than He is 
satisfied. He commands them to make the multitude sit down. Just as though He 
had said : I have what I want ; the meal is ready ; let them be seated ! But He 
takes care that this banquet shall be conducted with an order worthy of the God who 
gives it. Everything must be calm and solemn ; it is a kind of passover meal. By 
the help of the apostles, He seats His guests in rows of fifty each (Matthew), or in 
double rows of fifty, by hundreds (Mark), This orderly arrangement allowed of the 
guests being easily counted. Mark describes in a dramatic manner the striking spec- 
tacle presented by these regularly-formed companies, each consisting of two equal 
ranks, and all arranged upon the slope of the hill (ovfinoaia avfnzoaia t irpaatcu Ttpaciai, 
ver. 39, 40). The pastures at that time were in all their spring splendor, and John 
and Mark offer a fresh coincidence here, in that they both bring forward the beauty 
of this natural carpet (xopros nolvc, John ; ;^/lwp<?s %6pToS, Mark ; Matthew says, 
ol xoproi). In conformity with oriental usage, according to which women and chil- 
dren must keep themselves apart, the men alone (ol avdpeS, John 5 : 10) appear to be 
seated in the order indicated. This explains why, according to the Syn., they alone 
were counted, as Luke says (ver. 14), also Mark (ver. 44), and, more emphatically 
still, Matthew (ver. 21, " without women and children"). 

3d. Vers. 16, 17<* The Repast. — The pronouncing of a blessing by Jesus is an inci- 
dent preserved in all four narratives. It must have produced a special impression on 
all the four witnesses. Each felt that this act contained the secret of the marvellous 
power displayed on this occasion. To bless God for a little is the way to obtain 
much. In Matthew and Mark, evloyrjce, He blessed, is absolute : the object under- 
stood is God. Luke adds avrovs, them (the food), a word which the Sinai'ticus erases 
(wrongly, it is clear), in accordance with* the two other Syn. It is a kind of sacra- 
mental consecration. John uses the word evxaptarelv, which is chosen, perhaps, not 
without reference to the name of the later paschal feast (eucharist)* The imperfect 
kdidov in Luke and Mark is graphic : " He gave, and kept on giving." The mention 
of the fragments indicates the complete satisfaction of their hunger. In John it is 
Jesus who orders them to be gathered up. This act must therefore be regarded as an 
expression of filial respect for the gift of the Father. The twelve baskets are men- 

* Ver. 16. I*. X. Syr 9ch . omit avrovs. 



260 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 



tioned in all the four narratives. The baskets belonged to the furniture of a caravan. 
Probably they were what the apostles had provided themselves with when they set 
out. The number of the persons fed is given by Matthew and Mark here. Luke 
had mentioned it already in the 14th verse, after the reply of the disciples ; John a 
little later (ver. 10), at the moment when the companies were being seated. What 
unaccountable caprice, if these narratives were taken from each other, or even from 
the same written source ! 

The criticism which sets out with the denial of the supernatural is compelled to 
erase this fact from the history of Jesus ; and this miracle cannot, in fact, be ex- 
plained by the " hidden forces of spontaneity," by the " charm which a person of 
flue organization exercises over weak nerves/" It is not possible either to fall back, 
with some commentators, on the process of vegetation, by supposing here an unusual 
acceleration of it ; we have to deal with bread, not with corn ; with cooked fish, not 
with living creatures. The fact is miraculous, or it is nothing. M. Renan has 
returned to the ancient interpretation of Paulus : Every one took his little store of 
provisions from his wallet ; they lived on very little. Keim combines with this ex- 
planation the mythical interpretation in two ways — imitation of the O. T. (the 
manna ; Elisha, 2 Kings 4 : 42), and the Christian idea of the multiplication of the 
Word, the food of the soul. With the explanation of Paulus, it is difficult to con- 
ceive what could have excited the enthusiasm of the people to the point of making 
them instantly resolve to proclaim Jesus as their King ! The mythical interpretation 
has to contend with special difficulties. Four parallel and yet original narratives wonder- 
fully supplementing each other, a number of minute precise details quite incompati- 
ble with the nebulous character of a myth (the five loaves and the two fishes, the 5000 
persons, the ranks of fifty, and the companies of a hundred, the twelve baskets) — all 
these details, preserved in four independent and yet harmonious accounts, indicate 
either a real event or a deliberate invention. But the hypothesis of invention, which 
Baur so freely applies to the miracles recorded in the fourth Gospel, finds an insur- 
mountable obstacle here in the accounts of the three other evangelists. How is criti- 
cism to get out of this network of difficulties ? When it has exhausted its ingenuity, 
it will end by laying down its arms before the holy simplicity of this narrative. 

3. First Announcement of tlie Passion : 9 : 18-27.— Up to the first multiplication of 
che loaves, it is impossible to make out any continuous synchronism between the 
synoptics, as the following table of the series of preceding incidents shows : 



Matthew. , 

Gadara. 

The Paralytic. 

Call of Matthew. 

Jairus. 

The blind and dumb. 

Mission of the Twelve. 

Deputation of John Bapt. 

Sabbatic scenes. 
Accusation (Beelzebub). 
Mother and brethren of 
Jesus ; 
The seven parables. 
Nazareth. 
Murder of John Baptist. 
Desert and first multipli- 
cation. 



Makk. 

Accusation (Beelzebub). 

Mother and brethren of 
Jesus. 

Parable of the sower. 

Gadara. 
Jairus. 

Nazareth. 

Mission of the Twelve. 

Murder of John Baptist. 
Desert and first multipli- 
cation. 



Luke. 
Parable of the sower. 

Mother and brethren of 
Jesus. 



Gadara. 
Jairus. 



Mission of the Twelve. 



Desert and first multipli- 
cation. 



Numbers might be thrown into a bag and taken out again hap-hazard thrice over, 
without obtaining an order apparently more capricious and varied. Yet of these 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 



261 



three narratives, one is supposed to be copied from the other, or to have emanated 
from the same written source ! 

Nevertheless, toward the end a certain parallelism begins to show itself, first of 
all between Mark and Luke (Gadara, Jai'rus, Mission of the Twelve), then between 
Matthew and Mark (Nazareth, murder of John, desert and first multiplication). 
This convergence of the three narratives into one and the same line proceeds from 
this point, after a considerable omission in Luke, and becomes more decidedly marked, 
until it reaches Luke 9 : 50, as appears from the following table : 



Matthew. 


Mark. 


Luke. 


Desert and first multiplica- 


As Matthew. 


As Matthew. 


tion. 






Tempest (Peter on the water). 


Tempest (without Peter). 


Wanting. 


Purifying and clean food. 


As Matthew. 


Id. 


Cauaanitish woman. 


Id. 


Id. 


Second multiplication. 


Id. 


Id. 


Sign from heaven (Decapolis). 


Id. 


Id. 


Leaven of the Pharisees. 


Id. 


Id. 


First announcement of the 


Id. 


As Matthew. 


Passion. 






Tran sfiguration . 


Id. 


Id. 


Lunatic child. 


Id. 


Id. 


Second announcement of the 


Id. 


Id. 


Passion. 






The Didrachma. 


Wanting. 


Wanting. 


The example of the child. 


As Matthew. 


As Matthew. 


Ecclesiastical Discipline. 


Id. 


Id. 


Wanting. 


Intolerance. 


As Mark. 


Forgiveness of offences. 


Wanting. 


Wanting. 



How is the large omission to be explained which Luke's narrative exhibits from 
the storm following the first multiplication to the last announcement of the Passion, 
corresponding to two whole chapters of Matthew (14 ; 22-16 : 12) and of Mark 
(6 : 45-8 : 26) ? How is the tolerably exact synchronism which shows itself from 
this time between all three to be accounted for ? Meyer gives up all attempts to ex- 
plain the omission ; it was due to an unknown chance. Reuss (§ 189) thinks that the 
copy of Mark which Luke used presented an omission in this place. Bleek attrib- 
utes the omission to the original Greek Gospel which Matthew and Luke made use 
of ; Matthew, he supposes, filled it up by means of certain documents, and Mark 
copied Matthew. Holtzmann (p. 223) contents himself with saying that Luke here 
breaks the thread of A. (primitive Mark), in order to connect with his narrative the 
portion which follows ; but he says nothing that might serve to explain this strange 
procedure. But the hypothesis upon which almost all these attempted solutions rest 
is that of a common original document, which, however, is continually contradicted 
by the numerous differences both in form and matter which a single glance of the eye 
discovers between Matthew and Mark. Then, with all this, the difficulty is only re- 
moved a step farther back. For it becomes necessary to explain the omission in the 
original document. And whenever this is done satisfactorily, it will be found neces- 
sary to have recourse to the following idea, which, for our own part, we apply 
directly to Luke. In the original preaching of the gospel, particular incidents were 
naturally grouped together in certain cycles more or less fixed, determined sometimes 
by chronological connection (the call of Matthew, the feast and the subsequent con- 



262 COMMENTAKY OK ST. LUKE. 

versations, the tempest, Gadara, and Jai'rus), sometimes by the similarity of the sub- 
jects (the Sabbatic scenes, 6 : 1-11).* These cycles were first of all put in writing, 
with considerable freedom and variety, sometimes by the preachers for their own use, 
and in other cases by their hearers, who were anxious to fix their recollection of 
them. The oldest writings of which Luke speaks (1 : 1) were probably collections 
more or less complete of these groups of narratives {avard^aodat difjyrjoiv). And what 
in this case can be more readily imagined than the omission of one or the other of 
these cycles in any of these collections ? An accident of this kind is sufficient to ex- 
plain the great omission which we meet with in Luke. The cycle wanting in the 
document he used extended a little farther than the second multiplication of the 
loaves, while the following portions belong to a part of the Galilean ministry, which, 
from the beginning, had taken a more definite form in the preaching. This was 
natural ; for the facts of which this subsequent series is composed are closely con- 
nected by a double tie, both chronological and moral. The subject is the approach- 
ing sufferings of Jesus. The announcement of them to the disciples is the aim of the 
following discourse ; and to strengthen their faith in view of this overwhelming 
thought is evidently the design of the transfiguration. The cure of the lunatic child, 
which took place at the foot of the mountain, was associated with the transfiguration 
in the tradition ; the second announcement of the Passion naturally followed the first, 
and all the more since it took place during the return from Csesarea to Capernaum ; 
w T hich was the case also with certain manifestations of pride and intolerance of which 
the apostles were then guilty, and the account of which terminates this part. In the 
tradition, this natural cycle formed the close of the Galilean ministry. And this ex- 
plains how the series of facts has been preserved in almost identical order in the three 
narratives. 

The following conversation, reported also by Matthew (16 : 13 et seq.) and Mark 
{8 : 27 et seq.), refers to three points ; 1st. The Christ (vers. 18-20) ; 2d. The suffering 
Christ (vers. 21 and 22) ; 3d The disciples of the suffering Christ (vers. 23-27). 

Jesus lost no time in returning to His project of seeking a season of retirement, a 
project which had been twice defeated, at Bethsaida-Julias, by the eagerness of the 
multitude to follow Him, and again in Tyre and Sidon, where, notwithstanding His 
desire to remain hid (Mark 7 : 24), His presence had been discovered by the Canaanit- 
ish woman, and afterward noised abroad through the , miracle which took place. 
After that He had returned to the south, had visited a second time that Decapolis 
which he had previously been obliged to quit almost as soon as He entered it. Then 
He set out again for the north, this time directing His steps more eastward, toward 
the secluded valleys where the Jordan rises at the foot of Hermon. The city of 
Csesarea Philippi was situated there, inhabited by a people of whom the greater part 
were heathen (Josephus, Vita, § 13). Jesus might expect to find in this secluded 
country the solitude which He had sought in vain in other parts of the Holy Land. 
He did not visit the city itself, but remained in the hamlets which surround it (Mark), 
or generally in those quarters (Matthew). 

1st. Vers. 18-20. The Christ— According to Mark, the following conversation 
took place during the journey (kv rrj 666) ; Mark thus gives precision to the vaguer 
indication of Matthew. The name of Csesarea Philippi is wanting in Luke's narra- 

* For the working out of a similar idea, see Lachmann's fine work, • Stud. u. 
Kritiken," 1835. 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 263 

tive. "Will criticism succeed in finding a dogmatic motive for this omission ? In a 
writer like Luke, who loves to be precise about places (ver. 10) and times (ver. 28), 
this omission can only be accounted for by ignorance ; therefore he possessed neither 
Mark nor Matthew, nor the documents from which these last derived this name. 
The description of the moral situation belongs, however, to Luke : Jesus hud just 
been alone praying. " Arbitrary and ill-chosen 'scenery," says Holtzmann (p. 224). 
One would like to know the grounds of this judgment on the part of the German 
critic. Would not Jesus, at the moment of disclosing to His disciples for the first 
time the alarming prospect of His approaching death, foreseeing the impression which 
this communication would make upon them, having regard also the manner in which 
He must speak to them under such circumstances, be likely to prepare Himself for 
this important step by prayer ? Besides, it is probable that the disciples took part in 
His prayer. The imperfect owfjoav , tliey were gathered together with Him, appears to 
indicate as much. And the term Kara^dvag (66gvs understood), in solitude, in no way 
excludes the presence of the disciples, but simply that of the people. This appears 
from the antithesis, ver. 23 : " And He' said to them all," and especially from Mark 
ver. 34 :" Having called the multitude." The expression, they were gathered together, 
indicates something of importance. Jesus first of all elicits from His disciples the 
different opinions which they had gathered from the lips of the people during their 
mission. The object of this first question is evidently to prepare the way for the 
next (ver. 20). On the opinions here enumerated, see ver. 8 and John 1 : 21. They 
amount to this : Men generally regard thee as one of the forerunners of the Messiah. 
The question addressed to the disciples is designed, first of all, to make them dis- 
tinctly conscious of the wide difference between the popular opinion and the convic- 
tion at which they have themselves arrived ; next, to serve as a starting-point for the 
fresh communication which Jesus is about to make respecting the manner in which 
the work of the Christ is to be accomplished. The confession of Peter is differently 
expressed in the three narratives : the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matthew) ; the 
Christ (Mark) ; the Christ of God (Luke). The form in Luke holds a middle place be- 
tween the other two. The genit., of God, signifies, as in the expression Lamb of 
God, He who belongs to God, and whom God sends. 

It has been inferred from this question, that up to this time Jesus had not assumed 
His position as the Messiah among His disciples, and that His determination to 
accept this character dates from this point ; that this resolution was taken partly in 
concession to the popular idea, which required that His work of restoration should 
assume this form, and partly to meet the expectation of the disciples, which found 
emphatic expression through the lips of Peter, the most impatient of their number. 
But, 1. The question in ver. 20 has not the character of a concession ; on the con- 
trary, Jesus thereby takes the initiative in the confession which it calls forth. 2. If 
this view be maintained, all those previous sayings and incidents in which Jesus gives 
Himself out to be the Christ must be set aside as unauthentic ; and there are such 
not only in John (1 : 39-41, 49-51 ; 3 : 14, 4 : 26), but in the Syn. (the election of 
the Twelve as heads of a new Israel ; the parallel which Jesus institutes, Matt. 5, 
between Himself and the lawgiver of Sinai: " You have heard that it hath been 
said . . . but I . . . ;" the title of bridegroom which He gives Himself, 
Luke 5 : 30, and parallels). The resolution of Jesus to assume the character of the 
Messiah, and to accomplish under this national form His universal task as Saviour of 
the world, was certainly matured within His soul from the first day of His public 
activity. The scenes of the baptism and temptation forbid any other supposition ; 
hence the entire absence of anything like feeling His way in the progress of His 
ministry. The import of His question is therefore something very different. The 



264 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

time had come for Him to pass, if we may so express it, to a new chapter in His 
teaching. He had hitherto, especially siace He began to teach in parables, directed 
the attention of His disciples to the near approach of the kingdom of God. It was 
now necessary to turn it toward Himself as Head of this kingdom, and especially 
toward the future, w holly unlooked for by them, which awaited Him in this char- 
acter. They knew that He was the Christ ; they had yet to learn how He was to be 
it. But before commencing on this 'new ground. He is anxious that they should ex- 
press in a distinct declaration, the result of His instructions and of their own previous 
experiences. As an experienced teacher, before beginning the new lesson He makes 
them recapitulate the old. With the different forms and vacillations of opinion, as 
well as the open denials of the rulers before them, He wants to hear from their own 
lips the expression of their own warm and decided conviction. This established result 
of His previous labor will serve as a foundation for the new labor which the gravity 
of His situation urges Him to undertake. The murder of John the Baptist made Him 
sensible that His own*end was not far off ; the time, therefore, was come to substitute 
for the brilliant form of the Christ, which as yet filled the minds of His disciples, the 
mournful image of the Man of sorrows. Thus the facts which, as we have seen (p. 
257), led Jesus to seek retirement in the desert of Bethsai'da-Julias, that He might be 
alone with His disciples, furnished the motives for the present conversation. 

We read in John, after the multiplication of the loaves (chap. 6), of a similar 
confession to this, also made by Peter in the name of the Twelve. Is it to be sup- 
posed, that at the same epoch two such similar declarations should have taken place ? 
Would Jesus have called for one so soon after having heard the other ? Is it not 
striking that, owing to the omission in Luke, the account of this confession, in his 
narrative as in John's follows immediately upon that of the multiplication of the . 
] oaves ? Certainly the situation described in the fourth Gospel is very different. In 
consequence of a falling away which had just been going on among His Galilean 
disciples, Jesus puts the question to His apostles of their leaving Him. But the 
questions which Jesus addresses to them in the Syn. might easily have found a place 
in the conversation of which John gives us a mere outline. At the first glance, it is 
true, John's narrative does not lead us to suppose such a long interval between the 
multiplication of the loaves and this conversation as is required for the journey from 
Capernaum to Csesarea Philippi. But the desertion of the Galilean disciples, which 
had begun immediately, was not completed in a day. It might have extended over 
some time (John 6 : 66 : en tovtov, from that time). Altogether the resemblance be- 
tween these two scenes appears to us to outweigh their dissimilarity. 

Keim admirably says : "We do not know which we must think the greatest; 
whether the spirit of the disciples, who shatter the Messianic mould, set aside the 
judgment of the priests, rise above all the intervening degrees of popular apprecia- 
tion, and proclaim as lofty and divine that which is abased and downtrodden, be- 
cause to their minds' eye it is and remains gre'at and divine — or this personality of 
Jesus, which draws from these feeble disciples, notwithstanding the pressure of the 
most overwhelming experiences, so pure and lofty an expression of the effect pro- 
duced upon them by His whole life and ministry." Gess : " The sages of Caper- 
naum remained unmoved, the enthusiasm of the people was cooled, on every side 
Jesus was threatened with the fate of the Baptist . . . it was then that the faith 
of His disciples shone out as genuine, and came forth from the furnace of trial as an 
energetic conviction of truth." 

2d. Vers. 21, 22.* The Suffering Christ— -The expression of Luke," He straitly 
charged and commanded them," is very energetic. The general reason for this pro- 
hibition is found in the following announcement of the rejection of the Messiah, as 
is proved by the participle elnuv, saying. They were to keep from proclaiming Him 
openly as the Christ, on account of the contradiction between the hopes which this 
title had awakened in the minds of the people, and the way in which this office was 

* The mss. vary between enreiv (T. R.) and beyetv (Alex.). Ver. 22. The mss. 
vary between eyepfyvai (T. R.) and avaarrfva^ 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 265 

to be realized in Him. But this threatening prohibition had a more special nature, 
which appears from John's narrative. It refers to the recent attempt of the people, 
after the multiplication of the loaves (John 6 : 14, 15), to proclaim Him king, and the 
efforts which Jesus was then obliged to make to preserve His disciples from tins mis- 
taken enthusiasm, which might have seriously compromised His work. It is the recol- 
lection of this critical moment which induces Jesus to use this severe language (emr- 
ifiycas). It was only after the idol of the carnal Christ had been forever nailed to 
the cros3, that the apostolic preaching could safely connect this title Christ with the 
name of Jesus. " See how," as Riggenbach says (" Vie de Jesus," p. 318), " Jesus 
was obliged in the very moment of self -revelation to veil Himself, when He had 
lighted the fire to cover it again.", Ae (ver. 21) is adversative : " Thou say est truly, 
I am the Christ ; but ..." Must, on account of the jxrophecies and of the Divine 
purpose, of which they are the expression. The members composing the Sanhedrim 
consisted of three classes of members : the elders, or presidents of synagogues ; the 
high priests, the heads of twenty -four classes of priests ; and scribes, or men learned 
in the law. All three Syn. give here the enumeration of these official classes. This 
paraphrase of the technical name invests the announcement of the rejection with all 
its importance. What a complete reversal of the disciples' Messianic ideas was this 
rejection of Jesus by the very authorities from whom they expected the recognition 
and proclamation of the Messiah ! 'AnoSoKifiaaQjivat indicates deliberate rejection, after 
previous calculation. There was a crushing contradiction between this prospect and 
the hopes of the disciples ; but, as Klostermann truly says, the last words, " And He 
shall rise again the third day," furnish the solution of it. 

Strauss and Baur contented themselves with denying the details of the prediction 
in which Jesus foretold His death. Volkmar and Holsten at the present day refuse 
to allow that He had any knowledge of this event before the last moments. Accord- 
ing to Holsten, He went to Jerusalem full of hope, designing to preach there as well 
as in Galilee, and confident, in case of need, of the interposition of God and of the 
swords of His adherents. . . . The holy Supper itself was occasioned simply by a 
passing presentiment. . . . His terrible mistake took Jesus by surprise at the last 
moment. Keim (ii. p. 556) acknowledges that it is impossible to deny the authenticity 
of the scene and conversation at Csesarea Philippi. According to him, Jesus could 
not have failed to have foreseen His violent death long before the catastrophe came. 
This is proved by the bold opposition of St. Peter, also by such sayings as those 
referring to the bridegroom who is to be taken away, to death as the way of life 
(Luke 9 : 23, 24), to Jerusalem which kills the prophets ; lastly, by the reply to the 
two sons of Zebedee. We may add 9 : 31, 12 : 50 ; John 2 : 20, 3 : 14, 6 : 53, 12 : 7. 
24— words at once characteristic and inimitable. And as to the details of this predic- 
tion, have we not a number of facts which leave no room for doubt as to the super- 
natural knowledge of Jesus (22 : 10-34 ; John 1 : 49, 4 : 18, 6 : 64, etc.) ? What the 
modern critics more generally dispute, is the announcement of the resurrection. But 
if Jesus foresaw His death, He must have equally foreseen His resurrection, as^ cer- 
tainly as a prophet believing in the mission of Israel could not announce the captivity 
without also predicting the return. And who would ever have dreamed of putting 
into the mouth of Jesus the expression three days and three' nights after the event, 
when in actual fact the time spent in the tomb did not exceed one day and two 
nights ? It is asked how it came to pass if Jesus, had so expressly predicted His 
resurrection, that this event should have been such an extraordinary surprise to his 
ipostles ? There we have a psychological problem, which the disciples themselves 
*ound it difficult to explain. Comp. the remarks of the evangelists, 5 : 45, 18 :34, 
xnd parallels, which can only have come from the apostles. The explanation of this 
)roblem is perhaps this : the apostles never thought, before the facts had opened 
:heii eyes, that the expressions death and resurrection used by Jesus should be taken 



266 COMMENTAEY ON ST. LUKE. 

literally. Their Master so commonly spoke in figurative language that up to the 
last moment they only saw in the first term the expression of a sad separation, a sud- 
den disappearance ; and in the second, only a sudden return, a glorious reappearing. 
And even after the death of Jesus, they in no way thought they should see Him 
appear again in His old form, and by the restoration to life of the body laid in the 
tomb. If they expected anything, it was His return as a heavenly king (see on 
23 : 42). Luke has omitted here the word of approval and the severe reprimand which 
Jesus, according to Matthew, addressed to Peter on this occasion. If any one is 
determined to see in this omission of Luke's a wilful suppression, the result of ill- 
will toward the Apostle Peter, or at least toward the Jewish Christians (Keim), what 
will he say of Mark, who, while omitting the words of praise, expressly refers to 
those of censure ? 

We can quite understand that the people could' not yet bear the disclosure of a 
suffering Messiah ; but Jesus might make them participate in it indirectly, by initia- 
ting them into the practical consequences of this fact for His true disciples. To de- 
scribe the moral crucifixion of His servants vers. 23-27, was to give a complete 
revelation of the spirituality of the Messianic kingdom. 

3d. Vers. 23-27.* " And He said to them all, If any man will come after me, let 
him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. 24. For whosoever 
will save his life shall lose it ; but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same 
shall save it. 25. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and 
lose himself, or be cast away ? 26. For whosoever shall be ashamed of me, and of my 
words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when He shall come in His own 
glory, and in His Father's and of the holy angels. 27 But I tell you of a truth, 
there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom 
of God." The preceding conversation had taken place within the privacy of the 
apostolic circle (yer. 18). The following words are addressed to all, that is to sa3 r , to 
the multitude, which, while Jesus was praying with His disciples, kept at a distance. 
According to Mark, Jesus calls them to Him to hear the instruction which follows. 
Holtzmann maintains tha t this to all of Luke must have been taken from Mark. But 
why could not the same remark, if it resulted from an actual fact, be reproduced in 
two different forms, in two independent documents ? Jesus here represents all those 
who attach themselves to Him under the figure of a train of crucified persons, ver. 
23. The aor. eWelv of the T. R means : make in general part of my following ; and 
the present epxeoQcu in the Alex. : range themselves about me at this very moment. 
The figure employed is that of a journey, which agrees with their actual circum- 
stances as described by Mark : h ry 66$. The man who has made up his mind to 
set out on a journey, has first of all to say farewell ; here he has to bid adieu to his 
own life, to deny himself. Next there is luggage to carry ; in this case it is the 
cross, the sufferings and reproach which never fail to fall on him who pays a serious 
regard to holiness of life. By the word alpetv, to take up, to burden one's self with, 
Jesus alludes to the custom of making criminals carry their cross to the place of 
punishment. Further, there is in this term the idea of a voluntary and cheerful 
acceptance. Jesus says his cross, that which is the result of a person'js own character 
and providential position. There is nothing arbitrary about it ; it is given from 

* Ver. 23. The mss. vary between eWeiv (T. R, Byz.) and epxeoOai (Alex.). & ca . 
C. D. and 11 Mjj. 120 Mnn. ItP leri< i»e, mit >caQ' V /iepav, which is the reading of T. R. 
with &* A. B. K. L. M. R. Z. II. Syr. Vg. Ver. 26. D. Syr cur . It al W. omit loyovu 
Ver. 27. &. B. L. X., avrov instead of ode. 13 Mjj., otriveg instead of oi. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 26? 

above. The authenticity of the word daily, which is wanting in some mss., cannot 
be doubted. Had it been a gloss, it would have been inserted in Matthew and Mark 
as well. This voluntary crucifixion is carried on every day to a certain degree. 
Lastly, after having taken farewell and shouldered his burden, he must set out on his 
journey. By what road ? By that which the steps of his Master have marked out. 
The chart of the true disciple directs him to renounce every path of his own choos- 
ing, that he may put his feet into the print of his leader's footsteps. Thus, and not 
by arbitrary mortifications actuated by self-will, is the death of self completely 
accomplished. The term follow, therefore, does not express the same idea as come 
after me, at the beginning of the verse ; the latter would denote outward adherence 
to the followers of Jesus. The other refers to practical fidelity in the fulfilment of 
the consequences of this engagement. 

The 24th verse demonstrates (for) the necessity for the crucifixion described, ver. 
23. "Without this death to self, man loses himself (24&) ; while by this sacrifice he 
saves himself (245). We find here the paradoxical form in which the Hebrew Mas- 
chal loves to clothe itself. Either of the two ways brings the just man to the anti- 
podes of the point to which it seemed likely to lead him. This profound saying, true 
even for man in his innocence, is doubly true when applied to man as a sinner. 
¥vxh, the breath of life, denotes the soul, with its entire system of instincts and natu- 
ral faculties. This psychical life is unquestionably good, but only as a point of de- 
parture, and as a means of acquiring a higher life. To be anxious to save it, to seek 
to preserve it as it is, by doing nothing but care for it, and seek the utmost amount 
of self-gratification, is a sure way of losing it forever ; for it is wanting to give 
stability to what in its essence is but transitory, and to change a means into an end. 
Even in the most favorable case, the natural life is only a transient flower, which 
must soon fade. That it may be preserved from dissolution, we must consent to 
lose it, by surrendering it to the mortifying and regenerating breath of the Divine 
Spirit, who transforms it into a higher life, and imparts to it an eternal value. To 
keep it, therefore, is to lose both it and the higher life into which, as the blossom 
into its fruit, it should have been transformed. To lose it is to gain it, first of all, 
under the higher form of spiritual life ; then, some day, under the form even of 
natural life, with all its legitimate instincts fully satisfied. Jesus says, " for my 
sake;" and in Mark, "for my sake and the Gospel's." It is, in fact, only as we 
give ourselves to Christ that we satisfy this profound law of human existence ; and 
it is only by the gospel, received in faith, that we can contract this personal relation- 
ship to Christ. Self perishes only when affixed to the cross of Jesus, and the divine 
breath, which imparts the new life to man, comes to him from Christ alone. No 
axiom was more frequently repeated by Jesus ; it is, as it were, the substance of his 
moral philosophy. In Luke 17 : 33 it is applied to the time of the Parousia ; it is 
then, in fact, that it will be fully realized. In John 12 : 25 Jesus makes it the law 
of his own existence ; in Matt. 10 : 39 he applies it to the apostolate. 

Vers. 25-27 are the confirmation (for) of this Maschal, and first of all, vers. 25 and 
26, of the first proposition. Jesus supposes, ver. 25, the act of saving one's own life, 
accomplished with the most complete success . . . amounting to a gain of the 
whole world. But in this very moment the master of this magnificent domain finds 
himself condemned to perish ! "What gain ! To draw in a lottery a gallery of pic- 
tures . . . and at the same time to become blind ! The expression n fyfuuQeis, or 
suffering loss, is difficult. In Matthew and Mark this word, completed by tyvxvv, 



268 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

corresponds to aTzolkcaS in Luke , but in Luke it must express a different idea. We 
may understand with it either the world or kavrov, himself, " suffering the loss of this 
world already gained," or (which is more natural) "losing himself altogether 
(airo?ieoaS), or even merely suffering some small loss in his own person." It is not 
necessary that the chastisement should amount to total perdition ; the smallest injury 
to the human personality will be found to be a greater evil than all the advantages 
accruing from the possession of the whole world. 

The losing one's self [the loss of the personality] mentioned in ver. 25 consists, ac- 
cording to ver, 26 (for), in being denied by Jesus in the day of his glory. The ex- 
pression, to be ashamed of Jesus, might be applied to the Jews, because fear of their 
rulers hindered them from declaring themselves for him ; but in this context it is 
more natural to apply it to disciples whose fidelity gives way before ridicule or vio- 
lence. The Cantabrigiensis omits the word loyovs, which leads to the sense: 
"ashamed of me and mine." This reading would recommend itself if better 
supported, and if the word IdyovS (my words) was not confirmed by the parallel ex- 
pression of Mark (8 : 35) : " for my sake and the gospel's.'" The glory of the royal 
advent of Jesus will be, first, that of his own personal appearing ; next, the glory of 
God ; lastly, the glory of the angels — all these several glories will be mingled to- 
gether in the incomparable splendor of that great day (2 Thess. 1 : 7-10). " Thus," 
says Gess, "to be worthy of this man is the new and paramount principle. This is 
no mere spiritualization of the Mosaic law ; it is a revolution in the religious and 
moral intuitions of mankind." 

Ver. 27 is the justification of the promise in ver. 245 (find his life by losing it), as 
vers. 25 and 26 explained the threatening of 24a. It forms in the three Syn. the con- 
clusion of this discourse, and the transition to the narrative of the transfiguration ; 
but could any of the evangelists have applied to such an exceptional and transitory 
incident this expression : the coming of the kingdom of Christ (Matthew), or of God 
(Mark and Luke) ? Meyer thinks that this saying can only apply to the Parousia, to 
which the preceding verse referred, and which was believed to be very near. But 
could Jesus have labored under this misconception (see the refutation of this opinion 
at chap. 21) ? Or has the meaning of his words been altered by tradition ? The lat- 
ter view only would be tenable. Many, urging the difference between Matthew's 
expression (until they have seen the Son of man coming in His kingdom) and that of 
Mark (" . . . the kingdom of God come with power") or of Luke (" . . . the 
kingdom of God") think that the notion of the Parousia has been designedly erased 
from the text of Matthew by the other two, because they wrote after the fall of Jeru- 
salem. Comp. also the relation between Matt. 24, where the confusion of the two 
events appears evident, and Luke 21, where it is avoided. But, 1. It is to 
be observed that this confusion is found in Mark (13) exactly the same as in 
Matthew (24). Now, if Mark had corrected Matthew for the reason alleged in the 
passage before us, how much more would he have corrected him in chap. 13, where 
it is not a single isolated passage that is in question, but where the subject of the 
Parousia is the chief matter of discourse ! And it the form of expression in Mark is 
not the result of an intentional correction, but of a simple difference in the mode of 
transmission, why might it not be the same also with the very similar form that oc- 
curs in Luke ? 2. There is a very marked distinction both in Mark and Luke, a sort 
of gradation and antithesis between this saying and the preceding — in Luke by 
means of the particle Si, and further : " And I also say that this recompense promised 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 269 

to the faithful confessors shall be enjoyed by some 1 of you before you die ;" and in 
Mark, in a still more striking manner, by the interruption of the discourse^nd the 
commencement of a new phrase : " And He said to limn" (9 : 1). So that the idea of 
the Parousia must be set aside as far as the texts of Mark and Luke are concerned. 
It may even be doubted whether it is contained in Matthew's expression ; comp. 
Matt. 26 : 64 : " Henceforth [from now] ye shall see the Son of man coming in the 
clouds of heaven. " The expression henceforth does not permit of our thinking of 
the Parousia. But this saying is very similar to the one before us. Others apply 
this promise to the fall of Jerusalem, or to the establishment of the kingdom of God 
among the heathen, or to the descent of the Holy Spirit. But inasmuch as these 
events were outward facts, and all who were contemporary with them were wit- 
nesses of them, we cannot by this reference explain nvis, some, which announces an 
exceptional privilege. After all, is the Lord's meaning so difficult to apprehend ? 
Seeing the kingdom of God, in his teaching, is a spiritual fact, in accordance with the 
inward nature of the kingdom itself ; comp. 17 : 21 : " The kingdom of God is within 
you" (see the explanation of this passage). For this reason, in order to enjoy this 
sight, a new sense, and a new birth are needed ; John 3:3: " Except a man be bom 
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. This thought satisfactorily explains the 
present promise as expressed in Luke and Mark. To explain Matthew's expression, 
we must remember that the work of the Holy Spirit pre-eminently consists in giving 
us a lively conviction of the exaltation and heavenly glory of Jesus (John 16 : 14). 
The rive's, some, are therefore all those then present who should receive the Holy Spirit 
at Pentecost, and behold with their inward eye those wonderful works of God, which 
Jesus calls his kingdom, or the kingdom of God. In this way is explained the gra- 
dation from ver. 26 to ver. 27 in Mark and Luke : " Whoever shall give his own life 
shall find it again, not only at the end of time, but even in this life (at Pentecost)." If 
this explanation be inadmissible, it must be conceded that this promise is based on a 
confusion of the fall of Jerusalem with the Parousia ; and this would be a proof that 
our Gospel as well as Matthew's was written before that catastrophe. 'AX^QwS must 
not be connected with "Keyed i Verily 1 say to you. It should be placed before the 
verb, as the apr/v is in the two other Syn. ; and Luke more generally makes use of 
en' d2.7]deias (three times in the Gospel, twice in the Acts). It must, then, belong to 
elaiv : " There are certainly among you." The Alex, reading avrov, here, must be pre- 
ferred to the received reading, tide, which is taken from the other Syn. 

4. The Transfiguration : 9 : 28-36. — There is but one allusion to this event in the 
whole of the N. T. (2 Peter 1), which proves that it has no immediate connection 
with the work of salvation. On the other hand, its historical reality can only be 
satisfactorily established in so far as we succeed in showing in a reasonable way its 
place in the course of the life and development of Jesus.* According to the descrip- 
tion of the transfiguration given in the Syn. (Matt. 17 : 1, et seq. ; Mark 9 : 2, et seq.), 
we distinguish three phases in this scene : 1st. The personal glorification of Jesus 
(vers. 28, 29) ; 2d. The appearing of Moses and Elijah, and His conversation with them 
(vers. 30-33) ; e 6d. The interposition of God Himself (vers. 34-36). 

* No one seems to us to have apprehended the real and profound meaning of the 
transfiguration so well as Lange, in his admirable " Vie de Jesus," a book the defects 
of which have unfortunately been much more noticed than its rare beauties. Keim 
might have learned more from him, especially in the study of this incident. 



270 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

1st. Vers. 28, 29.* The Glory* of Jesus. — The three narratives show that there was 
an inte|pal of a week between the transfiguration and the first announcement of the 
sufferings of Jesus, with this slight difference, that Matthew and Mark say six days 
after, while Luke says about eight days after. It is a very simple explanation to sup- 
pose that Luke employs a round number, as indeed the limitation 6aei, about, indi- 
cates, while the others give, from some document, the exact figure. But this 
explanation is too simple for criticism. " Luke," says Holtzmann, " affects to be a 
better chronologist than the others." And for this reason, forsooth, he substitutes 
eight for six on his own authority, and immediately, from some qualm of conscience, 
corrects himself by using the word about! To such puerlities is criticism driven by 
the hypothesis of a common document. The Aramaean constructions, which charac- 
terize the style of Luke in this passage, and which are not found in the two other 
Syn. (eyevero nal aveftij, ver. 28 ; h/evero elnev, ver. 33), would be sufficient to prove 
that he follows a different document from theirs. The nominative 7/jj.epai 6kt6, eight 
days, is the subject of an elliptical phrase which forms a parenthesis : " About eight 
days had passed away." It is not without design that Luke expressly adds, after 
these sayings. He thereby brings out the moral connection between this event and 
the preceding conversation. We might think, from the account of Matthew and 
Mark, that in taking His disciples to the mountain, Jesus intended to be transfig- 
ured before them. Luke gives us to understand that He simply wished to pray with 
them. Lange thinks, and it is probable, that in consequence of the announcement of 
His approaching sufferings, deep depression had taken possession of the hearts of the 
Twelve. They had spent these six days, respecting which the sacred records pre- 
serve unbroken silence, in a gloomy stupor. Jesus was anxious to rouse them out of 
a feeling which, to say the least, was quite as dangerous as the enthusiastic excite- 
ment which had followed the multiplication of the loaves. And in order to do this 
He had recourse to prayer ; He sought to strengthen by this means those apostles 
especially whose moral state would determine the disposition of their colleagues. 
Knowing well by experience the influence a sojourn upon some height has upon the 
soul — how much more easily in such a place it collects its thoughts and recovers 
from depression-— He leads them away to a mountain. The art. to denotes the moun- 
tain nearest to the level country where Jesus then was. According to a tradition, of 
which we can gather no positive traces earlier than the fourth century (Cyril of Je- 
rusalem, Jerome), the mountain in question was Tabor, a lofty cone, situated two 
leagues to the south-east of Nazareth. Perhaps the Gospel to the Hebrews presents 
an older trace of this opinion in the words which it attributes to Jesus : " Then my 
mother, the Holy Spirit, took me up by a hair of my head, and carried me to the 
high mountain of Tabor." But two circumstances are against the truth of this tradi- 
tion : 1. Tabor is a long way off Csesarea Philippi, where the previous conversation 
took place. Certainly, in the intervening six days Jesus could have returned even 
to the neighborhood of Tabor. But would not Matthew and Mark, who have noticed 
the journey into the northern country, have mentioned this return ? 2. The summit 
of Tabor was at that time, as Robinson has proved, occupied by a fortified town, 
which would scarcely agree with the tranquillity which Jesus sought. We think, 
therefore, that probably the choice lies between Hermon and Mount Panias, from 

* Ver. 28. &* B. H. Syr. It* 11 *, omit teat before napaXapuv. The mss. vary between 

lcjaiw?i> tcai lanofiov and lanofiov ttai luavvijv. 



COMMENTARY UN ST. LUKE. 271 

whose snowy summits, visible to the admiring eye in all the northern parts of the 
Holy Land, the sources of the Jordan are constantly fed. 

The strengthening of the faith of the three principal apostles was the. object, 
therefore, of this mountain excursion ; the glorification of Jesus was an answer to 
prayer, and the means employed by God to bring about the desired result. The 
connection between the prayer of Jesus and His transfiguration is expressed in Luke 
by the preposition ev, which denotes more than a mere simultaneousness (while He 
prayed), and makes His prayer the cause of this mysterious event. Elevated feeling 
imparts to the countenance and even to the figure of the entire man a distinguished 
appearance. The impulse of true devotion, the enthusiasm of adoration, illumine 
him. And when, corresponding with this state of soul, there is a positive revelation 
on the part of God, as in the case of Moses or of Stephen, then, indeed, it may come 
to pass that the inward illumination, penetrating, through the medium of the soul, 
even to its external covering, the body, may produce in it a prelude, as it were, of 
its future glorification. It was some phenomenon of this kind that was produced in 
the person of Jesus while He was praying. Luke describes its effects in the simplest 
manner : " His countenance became other." How can Holtzmanu maintain that in 
him the vision is " aesthetically amplified." His expression is much more simple 
than Mark's : "He was transfigured before them," or than that of Matthew, who to 
these words of Mark adds, " and his countenance shone as the sun." This luminous 
appearance possessed the body of Jesus in such intensity as to become perceptible 
even through His garments. , Even here the expression of Luke is very simple : 
" His garments became white and shining," and contrasts with the stronger expres- 
sions of Mark and Matthew. The grandeur of the receut miracles shows us that 
Jesus at this time had reached the zenith of His powers. As everything in 
His life was in perfect harmony, this period must have been that also in which 
He reached the perfection of His inward development. Having reached it, what 
was His normal future ? He could not advance ; He must not go back. From 
this moment, therefore, earthly existence became too narrow a sphere for this 
perfected personality. There only remained death ; but death is the offspring of the 
sinner, or, as St. Paul says, the icages of sin (Rom. 6 : 23). For the sinless man the 
issue of life is not the sombre passage of the tomb ; rather is it the royal road of a 
glorious transformation. Had the hour of this glorification struck for Jesus ; and 
was His transfiguration the beginning of the heavenly renewal ? This is Lange's 
thought ; it somehow brings thi3 event within the range of the understanding. G-ess 
gives expression to it in these words : " Thi3 event indicates the ripe preparation of 
Jesus for immediate entrance upon eternity." Had not Jesus Himself voluntaril}- 
suspended the change which was on the point of being wrought in Him, this moment 
would have become the moment of His ascension. 

2d. Vers. 30-33. The Appearing of Moses and Elijah. — Not only do we sometimes 
see the eye of the dying lighted up with celestial brightness, but we hear him con- 
versing with the dear ones who have gone before him to the heavenly home. Through 
the gate which is opened for him, heaven and earth hold fellowship. In the same 
way, at the prayer of Jesus, heaven comes down or earth rises. The two spheres 
touch. Keim says : " A descent of heavenly spirits to the earth has no warrant either 
in the ordinary course of events or in the Old or New Testament." Gess very 
properly replies : " Who can prove that the appearing of these heroes of the Old Cove- 
nant was in contradiction to the laws of the upper world ? We had far better confess 



272 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

our ignorance of those laws." Moses and Elijah are there, talking with Sim. Luke 
does not name them at first. He says two men. This expression reflects the im- 
pression which must have been experienced by the eye-witnesses of the scene. They 
perceived, first of all, the presence of two persons unknown ; it was only afterward 
that they knew them by name. 'ISov, behold, expresses the suddenness of the appari- 
tion. The imperf., they were talking, proves that the conversation had already lasted 
some time when the disciples perceived the presence of these strangers. OltiveS is 
emphatic : who were no other than . . . Moses and Elijah were the two most 
zealous and powerful servants of God under the Old Covenant. Moreover, both of 
them had a privileged end : Elijah, by his ascension, was preserved from the un- 
clothing of death ; there was something equally mysterious in the death and disap- 
pearance of Moses. Their appearing upon the mountain is perhaps connected with 
the exceptional character of the end of their earthly life. But how, it is asked, did 
the apostles know them ? Perhaps Jesus addressed them by name in the course of 
the conversation, or indicated who they were in a way that admitted of no mistake. 
Or, indeed, is it not rather true that the glorified bear upon their form the impress of 
their individuality, their new name (Rev. 3 : 17) ? Could we behold St. John or St. 
Paul in their heavenly glo^ for any length of time without giving them their name h 

The design of this appearing is only explained to us by Luke : " They talked," 
he says literally, " of the departure which Jesus was about to accomplish at Jerusa- 
lem." How could certain theologians imagine that Moses and Elijah came to in- 
struct Jesus respecting His approaching sufferings, when only six days before He 
had Himself informed the Twelve about them ? It is rather the two heavenly mes- 
sengers who are learning of Jesus, as the apostles were six days before, unless one 
imagines that they talked with Him on a footing of equality. In view of that cross 
which is about to be erected, Elijah learns to kuow a glory superior to that of being 
taken up to heaven— the glorv of renouncing, through love, such an ascension, and 
choosing rather a painful and ignominious death. Moses comprehends that there is 
a sublimer end than that of dying, according to the fine expression which the Jewish 
doctors apply to his death, " from the kiss of the Eternal ; and this is to deliver up 
one's soul to the fire of divine wrath. This interview, at the same time, gave a sanc- 
tion, in the minds of the disciples, to an event from the prospect of which only six 
days before they shrank in terror. The term i^odog, going out, employed by Luke, is 
chosen designedly ; for it contains, at the same time, the ideas both of death and 
ascension. Ascension was as much the natural way for Jesus as death is for us. He 
might ascend with the two who talked with Him. But to ascend now would be to 
ascend without us. Down below, on the plain, He sees mankind crushed beneath 
the weight of sin and death. Shall He abandon them ? He cannot bring Himself to 
this. He cannot ascend unless He carry them with Him ; and in order to do this, 
He now braves the other issue, which He can only accomplish at Jerusalem. 
Wiijpovv, to accomplis7i, denotes not the finishing of life by dying (Bleek), but the 
completion of death itself. In such a death there is a task to accomplish. The ex- 
pression, at Jerusalem, has deep tragedy in it ; at Jerusalem, that city which has the 
monopoly of the murder of the prophets (13 : 38). This single word of Luke's on the 
subject of the conversation throws light upon the scene, and we can appraise at its 
true value the judgment of the critics (Meyer, Holtzmann), who regard it as nothing 
more than the supposition of later tradition ? 

Further, it is through Luke that we are able to form an idea of the true state of 



COMMENTAKY OK ST. LUKE. 273 

the disciples during this scene. The imperf., they talked, ver. 30, has shown us that 
the conversation had already lasted some time when the disciples perceived the pres- 
ence of the two heavenly personages. We must infer from this that they were 
asleep during the prayer of Jesus. This idea is confirmed by the plus-perfect qoav 
Pepaprjfievoi, they had been weighed down, ver. 32. They were in this condition during 
the former part of the interview, and they only came to themselves just as the con- 
versation was concluding. The term diaypriyopeiv is used nowhere else in the 1ST. T. 
In profane Greek, where it is very little used, it signifies : to keep awake. Meyer 
would give it this meaning here : " persevering in keeping themselves awake, not- 
withstanding the drowsiness which oppressed them." This sense is not inadmissi- 
ble ; nevertheless, the 6e, but, which denotes an opposition to this state of slumber, 
rather inclines us to think that this verb denotes their return to self-consciousness 
through (did) a momentary state of drowsiness. Perhaps we should regard the choice 
of this unusual term as indicating a strange state, which many persons have experi- 
enced, when the soul, afler having sunk to sleep in prayer, in coming to itself, no 
longer finds itself in the midst of earthly things, but feels raised to a higher sphere, 
in which it receives impressions full of unspeakable joy. 

Ver. 33 also enables us to see the true meaning of Peter's words mentioned in the 
three narratives. It was the moment, Luke tells us, when the two heavenly messen- 
gers were preparing to part from the Lord. Peter, wishing to detain them, ventures 
to speak. He offers to construct a shelter, hoping thereby to induce them to prolong 
their sojourn here below ; as if it were the fear of spending the night in the open air 
that obliged them to withdraw ! This enables us to understand Luke's remark (comp. 
also Mark) : not knowing what he said. This characteristic speech was stereotyped 
in the tradition, with this trifling difference, that in Matthew Peter calls Jesus Lord 
(Kvpie), in Mark Master (papfii), in Luke Master (eTnardra). And it is imagined that 
our evangelists amused themselves by making these petty changes in a common text ! 

3d. Vers. 34-36.* The Divine Voice. — Here we have the culminating point of this 
scene. As the last sigh of the dying Christian is received by the Lord, who comes for 
him (John 14 : 3 ; Acts 7 : 55, 56), so the presence of God is manifested at the mo- 
ment of the glorification of Jesus. The cloud is no ordinary cloud ; it is the veil in 
which God invests Himself when He appears here below. We meet with it in the 
desert and at the inauguration of the temple ; we shall meet with it again at the 
ascension. Matthew calls it a bright cloud ; nevertheless, he says, with the two oth- 
ers, that it overshadowed this scene. His meaning is, that the brightness of the cen- 
tral light pierced through the cloudy covering which cast its mysterious shadow on 
the scene. If with the T. R. we read helvovg, only Jesus, Moses, and Elijah were 
enveloped in the cloud, and the fear felt by the disciples proceeded from uneasiness 
at being separated from their Master. But if with the Alex, we read avrovS, all six 
were enveloped in an instant by the cloud, and the fear which seized the apostles was 
caused by their vivid sense of the divine nearness. The former meaning is more 
natural ; for the voice coming forth out of the cloud could scarcely be addressed to 
any but persons who were themselves outside the cloud. 

* Ver. 34. S*. B. L. some Mnn. , eTreoiua&v instead of eneoiciaoev. &. B. C. L. some 
Mnn., ELatXBeiv avrovs instead of ekeivovS elgeT&eiv, which is the reading of T. R. with 
the other Mjj. and the versions. Ver. 35. IS. B. L. Z. Cop., o e/c^.e/le^evo? instead of 
o ayaTTTjrog, which is the reading of T. R. with 18 Mjj., the greater part of the Mnn. 

Syr, It ali i. 



274 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

The form of the divine declaration is very nearly the same in the three accounts. 
The Alex, reading in Luke : this is my Elect, is preferable to the received reading : 
this is my beloved Son, which is taken either from the two other narratives, or from 
the divine salutation at the baptism. It is a question here of the elect in an absolute 
sense, in opposition to servants, like Moses and Elijah, chosen for a special work. 
Comp. 23 : 35. The exhortation : Hear Him, is the repetition of that by which 
Moses, Deut. 18 : 15, charged Israel to welcome at some future day the teaching of 
the Messiah. This last word indicates the design of the whole scene : " Hear Him, 
whatever He may say to you ; follow in His path, wherever He may lead you. " We 
have only to call to mind the words of Peter : " Be it far from thee, Lord ! this shall 
not be unto Thee," in the preceding conversation, to feel the true bearing of this 
divine admonition. We find here again the realization of a law which occurs 
throughout the life of Jesus ; it is this, that every act of voluntary humiliation on the 
part of the Sun is met by a corresponding act of glorification, of which He is the ob- 
ject, on the part of the Father. He goes down into the waters of the Jordan, devot- 
ing Himself to death ; God addresses Him as His well-beloved Son. In John 12, in 
the midst of the trouble of His soul, He renews His vow to be faithful unto death ; 
a voice from heaven answers Him with the most magnificent promise for His filial 
heart. 

Matthew mentions here the feeling of fear which the other two mention earlier. 
The word : Jesus only, ver. 36, is common to the three narratives. It is a forcible 
expression of the feeling of those who witnessed the scene after the disappearing of 
the celestial visitants ; see on 2 : 15. Does it contain any allusion to the idea which 
has been made the very soul of the narrative : The law and tbe prophets pass away ; 
Jesus and His word alone remain ? To me it appears doubtful. The silence kept at 
first by the apostles is accounted for in Matthew and Mark by a positive command of 
Jesus. The Lord's intention, doubtless, was to prevent the carnal excitement which 
the account of such a scene might produce in the hearts of the other apostles and in 
the minds of the people. After the resurrection and the ascension, there would no 
longer be anything dangerous in the account of the transfiguration. The risen One 
could not be a king of this world. Luke does not mention Jesus' prohibition ; he 
had no reason for omitting it, had he known of it. The omission of the following 
conversation respecting the coming of Elijah may be accounted for, on the other 
hand, as intentional. This idea being current only among the Jews, Luke might not 
think it necessary to record for Gentile readers the conversation to which it had given 
rise. Besides, 1 : 17 already contained a summary of what there was to be said on 
this subject. This entire scene, then, in each of its phases, conduced to the object 
which Jesus had in view — the strengthening of the faith of His own. In the first, 
the contemplation of His glory ; in the second, the sanction of that way of sorrow 
into which He was to enter and take them with Him ; in the third, the divine ap- 
proval stamped on all His teaching : these were powerful supports for the faith of 
the three principal apostles, which, once confirmed, became, apart from words, the 
support of the faith of their weaker fellow -disciples. 

The objections to the reality of the transfiguration are : 1. Its magical character 
and uselessness : Why, asks Keim, should there be a sign from heaven on this grand 
scale, when Jesus always refused to grant any such prodigy ! But nowhere, per- 
haps, does the sound reasonableness of the gospel come out more clearly than in this 
narrative ; glorification is as much the normal termination of a holy life, as death is 






COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 275 

of corrupt life. The design with which this manifestation, which might have been 
concealed from the disciples, was displayed to them, appears from its connection 
with the previous conversation respecting the sufferings of the Messiah. 2. The im- 
possibility of the reappearing of beings who have long been dead (see on Ver. 30). 
3. A real appearing of Elijah would be an actual contradiction to the following con- 
versation (in Matthew and Mark), in which Jesus denies the return of this prophet in 
person, as expected by the rabbis and the people. These are tbe arguments of Bleek 
and Keim. But what Jesus denies in the following conversation is not a temporary 
appearance, like that of the transfiguration, but Elijah's return to life on. earth in 
order to fulfil a new ministry. This is what John the Baptist had accomplished 
(1 : 17). 4. The silence of John, who must have conceived of the glory of Jesus in a 
more spiritual manner. Is it to be believed that this objection can be raised by the 
same critic who blames John for the magical character of the miracles which he 
relates, and denies their reality for this reason ? The transfiguration, along with 
many other incidents (the choice of the Twelve, the institution of baptism and the 
Lord's Supper, etc.), is omitted by John for the simple reason that they were suffi- 
ciently known through the Syn. , and did not necessarily enter into the plan of his 
book. 5. " The artificial character of the narrative appears from i(s resemblance to 
certain narratives of the O. T." (Keim). And yet this very Keim disputes the reality 
of the appearing of Moses and Elijah, on the ground that apparitions of the dead are 
not warranted by the O. T. ! But how is the existence of our three nairatives to be 
explained? Paulas reduces the whole to a natural incident. He supposes an inter- 
view of Jesus with two unknown frieuds with whom He had made an appointment, 
on the mountain. The reflection of the rising or setting sun on the snows of Her- 
mon, followed by a sudden clap of thunder, occasioned all the rest. But who were 
those secret frieuds more closely connected with Jesus than His most intimate apos- 
tles ? This explanation only results in making this scene a got-up affair, and Jesus a 
charlatan. It is abandoned at the present day. Weisse, Strauss, and Keim regard 
the transfiguration as nothing but, an invention of mythical origin, designed to repre- 
sent the moral glory of Jesus under images derived from the history of Moses and 
Elijah. But they can never explain how the Church created a picture so complete as 
this out of fragments of O. T. narrative. And how could a mythical narrative occur 
in the midst of such precise historical notes of time as those in which it is contained 
in the three narrations (six or eight days after the conversation at Caesarea, on the one 
hand ; the eve of the cure of the lunatic child, on the other) ? And Jesus' strict in- 
junction forbidding His apostles to publish an event which never took place ! We 
must pass here, as everywhere else, from the mythical theory to the supposition of 
imposture. And Peter's absurd speech — would the Church have been likely to make 
its founder speak after this fashion ? Lastly, others have regarded the transfigura- 
tion simply as a dream of Peter's. But did the two other apostles have the same 
dream at the same time ? And would Jesus have attached such importance to a dis- 
ciple's dream as to have strictly prohibited him from relating it until after His resur- 
rection from the dead ? All these fruitless attempts prove that the denial of the fact 
has also its difficulties. 

From innocence to holiness, and from holiness to glory ; here we have the normal 
development of human existence, its royal path. The transfiguration, at the culmi- 
nating point of the life of Jesus, shows that once at least this ideal has been realized 
in the history of humanity. 

This narrative is one of those in which we can most clearly establish the origi- 
nality and superior character of Luke's sources of information. Certainly, he has 
neither derived his matter from the two other evangelists, nor from a document com- 
mon to all three. This is evident from these two expressions : eight days after, and 
the elect of God (ver. 28 and ver. 35). The details by which Luke determines for us 
the precise object of this scene, and the subject of Jesus' conversation with Moses 
and Elijah, as well as the picture he gives of the state of the disciples, are such in- 
imitable touches, and are so suggestive for purposes of interpretation, that criticism 
must renounce its mission as a search after historic truth, or else decide to accord to 
Luke the possession of independent sources of information closely connected with 
the fact. 



276 COMMEKTAEY (Xtf ST. LUKE. 

The transfiguration is the end and seal of the Galilean ministry, and at the same 
time the opening of the history of the passion in our three Gospels. 

5. The Cure of the Lunatic Child : 9: 37-43<z. — The following narrative is closely 
connected with the preceding in the three Syn. (Matt. 17 : 14, et seq. ; Mark 9 : 14, 
et seq.). There was a moral contrast which had helped tradition to keep the chrono- 
logical thread. 

Vers. 37-40.* The Bequest. — The sleep with which the disciples were overcome, 
as well as Peter's offer to Jesus, ver. 33, appear to us to prove that the transfiguration 
had taken place eitiier in the evening or during the night. Jesus and His three 
companions came down from the mountain the next morning. A great multitude 
awaited them. Nevertheless, according to Mark, the arrival of Jesus excited a feeling 
of surprise. This impression might be attributed to a lingering reflection of glory, 
which still illumined His person. But a more natural explanation of it is the violent 
scene which had just taken place before all this crowd, which gave a peculiar oppor- 
tuneness to the arrival of the Master. Matthew omits all these details, and goes 
straight to the fact. The symptoms of the malady, rigidity, foaming, and cries, 
show to what kind of physical disorder it belonged ; it was a species of epilepsy. 
But the 42d verse and the conversation following, in Matthew and Mark, prove that 
in the belief of Jesus the disorder of the nervous system was either the cause or the 
effect of a mental condition, of the same kind as those of which we have already had 
several examples (4 : 33, et seq., 8 : 26, et seq.). According to Matthew, the attacks 
were of a periodical character, and were connected with the phases of the moon 
(ca7ij]VLd&Tai). Mark adds three items to the description of the malady : dumbness 
(in the expression dumb demon there is' a confusion of the cause with the effect ; 
comp. 8 : 12, 13, 14, 23, for examples of similar confusion), grinding of the teeth, and 
wasting away. These are common symptoms in epilepsy. 

The disciples had found themselves powerless to deal with a malady so deep- 
seated (it dated from the young man's childhood, Mark 5 : 22) ; and the presence of 
certain scribes (see Mark), who no doubt had not spared their sarcasm either against 
them or their Master, had both humiliated and exasperated them. The expectation 
of the people was therefore highly excited. What a contrast for Jesus between the 
hours of divine peace which He had just spent in communion with heaven, and the 
spectacle of the distress of this father, and of the various passions which were raging 
around him ! 

Vers. 41-43&. The Answer. — The severe exclamation of Jesus : Faithless andper- 
verse generation, etc., has been applied to the disciples (Meyer) ; to the scribes (Cal- 
vin) ; to the father (Chrysostom, Grotius, Neander, De Wette) ; to the people (Ols- 
hausen). The father in Mark acknowledges his unbelief ; the scribes were completely 
under the power of this disposition ; the people had been shaken by their influence ; 
lastly, the disciples — so in Matthew Jesus expressly tells them when the scene was 
over — had been defeated in this case by their want of faith. All these various 
explanations, therefore, may be maintained. And the expression, yevia, generation, 
the contemporary race, is sufficiently wide to comprehend all the persons present. 
After enjoying fellowship with celestial beings, Jesus suddenly finds Himself in the 
midst of a world where unbelief prevails in all its various degrees. It is therefore the 

* Ver. 37. J*. B. L. S. omit ev before rr/ e^s. Ver. 38. The mss. are divided 
between eTuBWeipae and e7u(32.eipov '<. Ver. 39. 2*. I), some Mnn. It. Vg. add /cat pjjccei 
before icai oTrapaaaei (taken from Mark). 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 277 

contrast, not between one man and another, but between this entire humanity alien- 
ated from God, in the midst of which He finds Himself, and the inhabitants of heaven 
whom He has just left, which wrings from Him this mournful exclamation. 
Acearpaju/xevr], perverse, an expression borrowed from Deut. 32 : 5. The twice repeated 
question, how long . . . ? is also explained by the contrast to the preceding scene. It 
is not an expression of impatience. The scene of the transfiguration has just proved 
that if Jesus is still upon the earth, it is by His own free will. The term suffer you 
implies as much. But He feels Himself a stranger in the midst of this unbelief, and 
He cannot suppress a sigh for the time when His filial and fraternal heart will be no 
longer chilled at' every moment by exhibitions of feeling opposed to His most cher- 
ished aspirations. The holy enjoyment of the night before has, as it were, made 
Him homesick. Tipb<; vfi&s, among you, in Luke and Mark, expresses a more active 
relation than ueB' vfiQv, with you, in Matthew. The command : Bring thy son hither, 
has something abrupt in it. Jesus seems anxious to shake off the painful feeling 
which possesses Him ; comp. a similar expression, John 11 : 34. 

There is a kind of gradation in the three narratives. Matthew, without mention- 
ing the preceding attack, merely relates the cure ; the essential thing for him is the 
conversation of Jesus with His disciples which followed. In Luke, the narrative of 
the cure is preceded by a description of the attack. Lastly, Mark, in describing the 
attack, relates the remarkable conversation which Jesus had with the father of the 
child. This conversation, which bears the highest marks of authenticity, neither 
allows us to admit that Mark drew his account from either of the others, or that 
they had his narrative, or a narrative anything like his, in their possession ; how 
could Luke especially have voluntarily omitted such details ? 

We shall not analyze here the dialogue in Mark in which Jesus suddenly changes 
the questiou, whether He has power to heal, into another, whether His questioner 
has power to believe ; after which, the latter, terrified at the responsibility thrown 
upon him by this turn being given to the question, invokes with anguish the power 
of Jesus to help his faith, which appears to him no better than unbelief. Nothing 
more profound or exquisite has come from the pen of any evangelist. It is the very 
photography of the human and paternal heart. And we are to suppose that the other 
evangelists had this masterpiece of Mark's before their eyes, and mutilated it ! We 
find these two incidents in Luke mentioned also in the raising of the widow of Nain's 
son : an only son (ver. 38) : and He gave him to his father (ver. 42). " They belong- 
to Luke's manner," says the critic. But ought not the original and characteristic 
details with which our Gospel is full to inspire a little more confidence in his narra- 
tives ? The conversation which followed this miracle, and which Luke omits, is one 
of the passages in which the unbelief of the apostles is most severely blamed. This 
omission does not prove, at any rate, that the sacred writer was animated with that 
feeling of ill-will toward the Twelve which criticism imputes to him. 

6. The three last Incidents of Jesus' Galilean Ministry : 9 : 436-50. 

1st. The Second Announcement of the Passion : vers. 43&-45.* — We may infer from 
the two other Syn. (Matt. 17 : 22, 23 ; Mark 9 : 30-32), more especially from Mark, 
that it was during the return from Caesarea Philippi to Capernaum that Jesus had 
this second conversation with His disciples respecting His sufferings. Luke places 
it in connection with the state of excitement into which the minds of those who were 
with Jesus had been thrown by the preceding miracles. The Lord desires to sup- 
press this dangerous excitement in the hearts of His disciples. And we can under- 

* Yer. 43. The mss. are divided between enot-qaev (T. R) and exoiei (Alex.). 



278 COMMENTARY ON* ST. LUKE. 

stand, therefore, why this time Jesus makes no mention of the resurrection (comp. 
9 : 22). By the pronoun iuels, you, He distinguishes the apostles from the multi- 
tude : " You who ought to know the real state of things." The expression Bsade ei? 
rd bra, literally, put this into your ears, is very forcible. " If even you do not under- 
stand it, nevertheless impress it on your memory ; keep it as a saying." The sayings 
which they are thus to preserve, are those which are summarized in this very 44th 
verse, and not, as Meyer would have us think, the enthusiastic utterances of the 
people to which allusion is made in ver. 43. The for which follows is not opposed 
to this meaning, which is the only natural one : ' ' Remember these sayings ; for 
incredible as they appear to you, they will not fail to be realized." The term, be 
delivered into the hands of men, refers to the counsel of God, and not to the treachery 
of Judas. They can know very little of the influence exercised by the will on the 
reason who find a difficulty in the want of understanding shown by the disciples (ver. 
45). The prospect which Jesus put before them was regarded with aversion (Matt. 
5 : 23), and consequently they refused to pay any serious attention to it, or even to 
question Jesus about it (Mark 5 : 32). Nothing more fully accords with psycho- 
logical experience than this moral phenomenon indicated afresh by Luke. The 
following narrative will prove its reality. The Iva, in order that, ver. 45, does not 
signify simply, so that. The idea of purpose implied in this conjunction refers to the 
providential dispensation which permitted this blindness. 

2d. The question : Which is the greatest ? vers. 46-48.* — This incident also must 
belong, according to Matthew and Mark, to the same time (Matt. 18 : 1, et seq. ; Mark 
9 : 33, et seq.). According to Mark, the dispute on this question had taken place on 
the road, during their return from Csesarea to Capernaum. " What were ye talking 
about by the way ?'' Jesus asked them after their arrival (ver. 33) ; and it was then 
that the following scene took place in a house, which, according -to Matthew, was 
probably Peter's. We have several other indications of a serious dispute between 
the disciples happening about this time ; for example, that admonition preserved by 
Mark at the end of the discourse spoken by Jesus on this occasion (9 : 50) ; " Have 
salt in yourselves, and be at peace among yourselves ;" then there is the instruction 
of Jesus on the conduct to be pursued in the case of offences between brethren, Matt, 
18 : 15 : " If thy brother sin against thee . . . ;" lastly, the question of Peter : 
" How many times am I to forgive my brother?" and the answer of Jesus, 18 : 21, 
22. All these sayings belong to the period of the return to Capernaum, and are 
indications of a serious altercation between the disciples. According to the highly 
dramatic account of Mark, it is Jesus himself who takes the initiative, and who ques- 
tions them as to the subject of their dispute. Shame-stricken, like guilty children, at 
first they are silent ; they then make up their minds to avow what the question was 
about which they had quarrelled. Each had put forward his claims to the first place, 
and depreciated those of the rest. Peter had been the most eager, and, perhaps, the 
most severely handled. We see how superficial was the impression made on them by 
the announcement of their Master's sufferings. Jesus then seated Himself (Mark 
5 : 35), and gathering the Twelve about Him, gave them the following instruction. 
All these circumstances are omitted by Matthew. In his concise way of dealing 
with facts, contrary to all moral probability, he puts the question : Which of us is the 

* Ver. 47. &. B. F. K. L. II. several Mnn. Syr. read eidoS instead of iSuv. B. C. 
D., natdiov instead of naidiov. Ver. 48. &. B. C. L. X. Z. some Mnn. ItP leri <i ue , ea-cv 
instead of eorcu. 



COM.MHXTAKY OX ST. LUKE. 279 

greatest ? into the mouth of the disciples who address it to Jesus. All he regards as 
important is the teaching given on the occasion. As to Luke, Bleek, pressing the 
words ev avrois, in them, supposes that, according to him, we have simply to do with 
the thoughts which had arisen in the hearts of the disciples (comp. ver. 47, ttjq nap6iai), 
and not with any outward quarrel. But the term el07jA.de, occurred, indicates a posi- 
tive fact, just such as that Mark so graphically describes ; and the expression in them, 
or among tliem, applies to the circle of the disciples in the midst of which this discus- 
sion had taken place. Jesus takes a- child, and makes him the subject of His demon- 
stration. It is a law of heaven, that the feeblest creature here below shall enjoy the 
largest measure of heavenly help and tenderness (Matt. 18 : 10). In conformity with 
this law of heaven Jesus avows a peculiar interest in children, and commends them 
to the special care of His own people. Whoever entering into His views receives 
them as such, receives Him. He receives Jesus as the riches which have come to fill 
the void of his own existence, which in itself is so poor, and in Jesus, God, who, as a 
consequence of the same principle, is the constant complement of the existence of Jesus 
(John 6 : 57). Consequently, for a man 4;o devote himself from love to Jesus to the 
service of the little ones, and so make himself the least, is to be on the road toward 
possessing God most completely, and becoming the greatest. 

The meaning of Jesus' words in Matthew is somewhat different, at least as far as 
concerns the first part of the answer. Here Jesus lays down as the measure of true 
greatness, not a tender sympathy for the little, but the feeling of one's own littleness. 
The child set in the midst is not presented to the disciples as one in whom they are 
to interest themselves, but as an example of the feeling with which they must them- 
selves be possessed. It is an invitation to return to their infantine humility and 
simplicity, rather than to love the little ones. It is only in the 5th verse that 
Matthew passes from this idea, by a natural transition, to that which is contained in 
the answer of Jesus as given by Luke and Mark. It is probable that the first part of 
the answer in Matthew is borrowed from another scene, which we find occurring later 
in Mark (10 : 13-16) and Luke (18 : 15-17), as well as in Matthew himself (19 : 13-15) ; 
this Gospel combines here, as usual, in a single discourse elements belonging to 
different occasions. Meyer thinks that in this expression, receive in my name, the in 
my name refers not to the disposition of him who receives, but of him who is received, 
in so far as he presents himself as a disciple of Jesus. But these two notions : present- 
ing one's self in the name of Jesus (consciously or unconsciously), and being received 
in this name, cannot be opposed one to the other. As soon as the welcome takes 
place, one becomes united with the other. The Alex, reading kari, is, is more spirit- 
ual than the Byz. karat, shall be, which has an eschatological meaning. It is difficult 
to decide between them. 

3d. The Dissenting Disciple : vers. 49 and 50.* — Only in some very rare cases 
does John play an active part in the Gospel history. But he appears to have been at 
this time in a state of great excitement ; comp. the incident which immediately fol- 
lows (9 : 54, et seq.), and another a little later (Matt. 20 : 20, et seq.). He had no 

* Ver. 49. &. B. L. X. A. Z. some Mnn. read ev rw in place of em to (ev perhaps 
taken from Mark). &. B. L. Z. It al '"J., eKuXvo/xev instead of enolvoanev. Ver. 50. C. 
D. F. L. M. Z. add avrov to firi nolvere. They read icad' vfiov and virep v/uuv in & cb B. 
C. D^K. L. M. Z. n. several Mnn. It. Syr. ; mQ' v/uov and vrrep tj/xuv in J** A. X. 
A some Mnn. ; and /caQ' rinuv and vnep tj/mov in T. R., according to & ca E. F. G. H. S. 
U. V. T. A. and most of the Mnn. 



280 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

doubt been one of the principal actors in the incident related here by himself, and 
which might very easily have had some connection with the dispute which had just 
been going on. The link of connection is more simple than criticism imagines. The 
importance which J esus had just attributed to His name in the preceding answer, 
makes John fear that he has violated by his rashness the majesty of this august 
name. When once in the way of confession, he feels that he must make a clean 
breast of it. This connection is indicated by the terms cntoKpiSetS (Luke) and (nreKpiBri 
(Mark). This incident, placed here in close connection with the preceding, helps us 
to understand some parts of the lengthened discourse, Matt. 18, which certainly 
belongs to this period. These little ones, whom care must be taken not to offend 
(ver. 6), whom the good shepherd seeks to save (vers. 11-13), and of whom not one 
by God's will shall perish (ver. 14), are doubtless beginners in the faith, such as he 
was toward whom the apostles had shown such intolerance. Thus it very often hap- 
pens, that by bringing together separate stones scattered about in our three narra- 
tives, we succeed in reconstructing large portions of the edifice, and then, by joining 
it to the Gospel of John, the entire building-. 

The fact here mentioned is particularly interesting. " We see," as Meyer says, 
" that even outside the circle of the permanent disciples of Jesus there were men in 
whom His word and His works had called forth a higher and miraculous power ; 
these sparks, which fell beyond the circle of His disciples, had made flames burst 
forth here and there away from the central fire." Was it desirable to extinguish 
these fires ? It was a delicate question. Such men, though they had never lived in 
the society of Jesus, acquired a certain authority, and might use it to disseminate 
error. With this legitimate fear on the part of the Twelve there was no doubt 
mingled a reprehensible feeling of jealousy. They no longer had the monopoly of the 
work of Christ. Jesus instantly discerned this taint of evil in the conduct which 
they had just pursued. In Luke, as in Mark, instead of the aor. eicoAwafiev, we for- 
bade Mm, some mss. read the imperf. skco?ivo/uev • " We were forbidding him, and 
thought we were doing right ; were we deceived ?" Their opposition was only tenta- 
tive, inasmuch as Jesus had not sanctioned it. This is the preferable reading. 

The answer of Jesus is full of broad and exalted feeling. The divine powers 
which emanate from Him could not be completely contained in any visible society, 
not even in that of the Twelve. The fact of spiritual union with Him takes pre- 
cedence of social communion with the other disciples. So far from treating a man 
who makes use of His name as an adversary, he must rather be regarded, even in his 
isolated position, as a useful auxiliary. Of the three readings offered by the mss. in 
ver. 50, and which are also found in Mark (against you— for you ; against you— for 
us ; against us— for us), it appears to me that we must prefer the first : " He who is 
not against you, is for you. The authority of the Alex, mss., which read in this way, 
is confirmed by that of the ancient versions, the Italic and the Peschito, and still more 
by the context. The person of Jesus is not in fact involved in this conflict— is it not 
in His name that the man acts ? As a matter of fact, it is the Twelve who are con- 
cerned : "he followeth not with us;" this is the grievance (ver. 49). It is quite 
different in the similar and apparently contradictory saying (Luke 11 : 23 ; Matt. 
12 :30) : " He who is not with me, is against me." The difference between these two : 
declarations consists in this : in the second case, it is the personal honor of Jesus 
which is at stake. He opposes the expulsions of demons, which He effects, t6* those 
of the Jewish exorcists. These latter appear to be laboring with Him against a com- 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 281 

mon enemy, but really they are strengthening the enemy. In the application which 
we might make of these maxims at the present day, the former would apply to 
brethren who, while separated from us ecclesiastically, are fighting with us for the 
cause of Christ ; while the latter would apply to men who, although belonging to the 
same religious society as ourselves, are sapping the foundations of the gospel. We 
should have the sense to regard the first as allies, although found in a different camp ; 
the others as enemies, although found in our own camp. 

Mark introduces between the two parts of this reply a remarkable saying, the 
import of which is, that no one need fear that a man who does such works in the 
name of Jesus will readily pass over to the ranks of those who speak evil of Him, 
that is to say, of those who accuse Him of casting out devils by Beelzebub. After 
having invoked the name of Jesus in working a cure, to bring such an accusation 
against Jesus would be to accuse himself. 

Nowhere, perhaps, is the fitting of the Syn. one into the other, albeit quite unde- 
signed, more remarkable. In Matthew the words, without the occasion of them (the 
dispute between the disciples) ; in Luke the incident, with a brief saying having 
reference to it ; in Mark the incident, with some very graphic and much more cir- 
cumstantial details than in Luke, and a discourse which resembles in part that in 
Matthew, but differs from both by omissions and additions which are equally impor- 
tant. Is not the mutual independence of the three traditional narratives palpably 
proved. ? 



FOURTH PART. 



JOURNEY FROM GALILEE TO JERUSALEM. 



kCHAP. 9 : 51-19 : 28. 
A great contrast marks the synoptical narrative : that between the ministry in 
alilee and the passion week at Jerusalem. According to Matthew (19 : 1-20 : 34) 
and Mark (chap. 10), the short journey from Capernaum to Judea through Perea 
forms the rapid transition between those two parts of the ministry of Jesus. Noth- 
ing, either in the distance between the places, or in the number of the facts related, 
would lead us to suppose that this journey lasted more than a few days. This will 
appear from the following table : 

Matthew. Mark. 



Conversation about divorce. 

• Presentation of the children. 

The rich young man. 

Parable of the laborers. 

Third announcement of the 

passion. 

The request of Zebedee's sons. 

Cure of the blind man of Jericho. 

Wanting. 

Id. 



Same as Matt. 

Id. 

Id. 

Wanting. 

Same as Matt. 

Id. 
Id. 

Wanting. 
Id. 



Luke. 



Wanting. 

Same as Matt. 

Id. 

Wanting. 

Same as in Matt. 

Wanting. 
Same as Matt. 

Zacchaeus. 

Parable of the 

pounds. 



The fourth part of the Gospel of Luke, which begins at 9 : 51, gives us a very differ- 
ent idea of what transpired at that period. Here we find the description of a slow and 
lengthened journey across the southern regions of Galilee, which border on Samaria. 
Jerusalem is, and remains, the fixed goal of the journey (ver. 51, 13 : 22, 17 : 11, 
etc.). But Jesus proceeds only by short stages, stupping at each locality to preach 
the gospel. Luke does not say what direction He followed. But we may gather it 
from the first fact related by him. At the first step which He ventures to take with 
His followers on the Samaritan territory, He is stopped short by the ill-will excited 
against Him by national prejudice ; so that even if His intention had been to repair 
directly to Jerusalem through Samaria (which we do not believe to have been the 
case), He would have been obliged to give up that intention, and turn eastward, in 
order to take the other route, that of Perea. Jesus therefore slowly approached the 
Jordan, with the view of crossing that river to the south of the lake Gennesaret, and 
of continuing His journey thereafter through Perea. The inference thus drawn from 
the narrative of Luke is positively confirmed by Matthew (19 : 1) and Mark (10 : 1), 
both of whom indicate the Perean route as that which Jesus followed after His de- 



284 COMMENTARY ON" ST. LUKE. 

parture from Galilee. In this way the three synoptics coincide anew from Luke 
18 : 15 onward ; and from the moment at which the narrative of Luke rejoins the two 
others, we have to regard the facts related by him as having passed in Perea. This 
slow journeying, first from west to east across southern Galilee, then from north to 
south through Perea, the description of which fills ten whole chapters, that is to say, 
more than a third of Luke's narrative, forms in this Gospel a real section intermedi- 
ate between the two others (the description of the Galilean ministry and that of the 
passion week) ; it is a third group of narratives corresponding in importance to the 
two others so abruptly brought into juxtaposition in Mark and Matthew, and which 
softens the contrast between them. 

But can we admit with certainty the historical reality of this evangelistic journey 
in southern Galilee, which forms one of the characteristic features of the third Gos- 
pel ? Many modern critics refuse to regard it as historical. They allege : 

1. The entire absence of any analogous account in Matthew and Mark. Matthew, 
indeed, relates only two solitary facts (Matt. 8 : 19 el seq. and 12 : 21 et seq.) of all 
those which Luke describes in the ten chapters of which this section consists, up to 
the moment when the three narratives again become parallel (Luke 18 : 14) ; Mark, 
not a single one. 

2. The visit of Jesus to Martha and Mary, which Luke puts in this journey 
(10 : 38-42), can have taken place only in Judea, at Bethany ; likewise the saying, 
13 : 34, 35, cannot well have been uttered by Jesus elsewhere than at Jerusalem in 
the temple (Matt. 23 : 37-39). Do not these errors of time and place cast a more than 
suspicious light on the narrative of the entire journey. M. Sabatier himself, who 
thoroughly appreciates the important bearing of this narrative in Luke on the har- 
mon3 T of the four Gospels, nevertheless goes the length of saying : "We see with 
how many contradictions and material impossibilities this narrative abounds." * 

It has been attempted to defend Luke, by alleging that he did not mean to relate a 
journey, and that this section was only a collection of doctrinal utterances arranged 
in the order of their subjects, and intended to show the marvellous wisdom of Jesus. 
It is impossible for us to admit this explanation, with Luke's own words before us, 
which express and recall from time to time his intention of describing a consecutive 
journey : 9 : 51, " He 'steadfastly s*et His face to go to Jerusalem ;" 13 : 22, " He was 
going through the cities and villages . •. . journeying toward Jerusalem ;" 17 : 11 
(lit. trans.), "And it came to pass, as He went to Jerusalem, that He traversed the 
country between Samaria and Galilee." 

Wieseler, taking up an entirely opposite point of view, finds in those three pas- 
sages the indications of as many individual journeys, which he connects with three 
journeys to Jerusalem placed by John almost at the same epoch. It is hoped in this 
way to find the point of support for Luke's narrative in the fourth Gospel, which is 
wanting to it in the two first. The departure mentioned 9 : 51 would correspond 
with the journey of Jesus, John 7 : 1-10 : 39 (feast of Tabernacles and of Dedication), 
a journey which terminates in a sojourn in Perea (John 10 : 40 et seq.). The mention 
of a journey 13 : 22 would refer to the journey from Perea to Bethany for the raising 
of Lazarus, John 11, after which Jesus repairs to Ephraim. Finally, the passage 
17 : 11 would correspond with the journey from Ephraim to Jerusalem for the last 
Passover (John 11 : 55). It would be necessary to admit that Jesus, after His 

* " Essai sur les Sources de la Vie de Jesus," p. 29. 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 285 

Epliraim sojourn, made a last visit to Galilee, proceeding thither through Samaria 
(Wieseler translates Luke 17:11 as in E. V., "through the midst of Samaria and 
Galilee"), then that He returned to Judea through Perea (Matt. 19 ; Mark 10). 

We cannot allow that this view has the least probability. 1. Those three pas- 
sages in Luke plainly do not indicate, in his mind at least, three different departures 
and journeys. They are way-marks set up by the author on the route of Jesus, in 
the account of this unique journey, by which he recalls from time to time the gen- 
eral situation described 9 : 51, on account of the slowness and length of the progress. 

2. The departure (9 : 51) took place, as the sending of the seventy disciples proves, 
with the greatest publicity ; it is not therefore identical with the departure (John 
7 : 1 etseq.), which took place, as it were, in secret ; Jesus undoubtedly did not then 
tajke with Him more than one or two of His most intimate disciples. 3. The inter- 
pretation which "Wieseler gives of 17 : 11 appears to us inadmissible (see the passage). 
It must therefore be acknowledged, not only that Luke meant in those ten chapters 
to relate a journey, but that he meant to relate one, and only one. 

Others think that he intended to produce in the minds of his readers the idea of a 
continuous journey, but that this is a framework of fiction which has no correspond- 
ing reality. De Wette and Bleek suppose that, after having finished his account of 
the Galilean ministry, Luke still possessed a host of important materials, without any 
determinate localities or dates, and that, rather than lose them, he thought good to 
insert them here, between the description of the Galilean ministry and that of the 
passion, while grouping them in the form of a recorded journey. Holtzmann takes 
for granted that those materials were nothing else than the contents of his second 
principal source, the Logia of Matthew, which Luke has placed here, after employ- 
ing up till this point his first source, the original Mark. Weizsacker, who thinks, 
on the contrary, that the Logia of Matthew are almost exactly reproduced in the 
great groups of discourses which the first contains, sees in this fourth part of Luke a 
collection of sayings derived by him from those great discourses of Matthew, and 
arranged systematically with regard to the principal questions which were agitated in 
the apostolic churches (the account of the feast, 14 : 1-35, alluding to the Agapae) ; 
the discourses, 15 : 1-17 : 10, to questions relative to the admission of Gentiles, etc.). 

Of course, according to those three points of view, the historical introductions 
with which Luke prefaces each of those teachings would be more or less his own in- 
vention. He deduces them himself from those teachings, as we might do at the present 
day. As to the rest, Bleek expressly remarks that this view leaves entirely intact the 
historical truth of the sayings of Jesus in themselves. "We shall gather up in the 
course of our exegesis the data which can enlighten us on the value of those hypoth- 
eses ; but at the outset we must offer the following observations : 1. In thus invent- 
ing an entire phase of the ministry of Jesus, Luke would put himself in contradic- 
tion to the programme marked out (1 : 1-4), where he affirms that he has endeavored 
to reproduce historical truth exactly. 2. What purpose would it serve knowingly to 
enrich the ministry of Jesus with a fictitious phase ? Would it not have been much 
simpler to distribute those different pieces along the course of the Galilean ministry ? 

3. Does a conscientious historian play thus with the matter of which he treats, espe- 
cially when that matter forms the object of his religious faith ? If Luke had really 
acted in this way, we should require, with Baur, to take a step further, and ascribe 
to this fiction a more serious intention— that of establishing, by those prolonged rela- 
tions of Jesus to the Samaritans, the Pauline universalism ? Thus it is that criti- 



286 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

cism, logically carried out in questions relating to the Gospels, always lands us in 
this dilemma — historical truth or deliberate imposture. 

The historical truth of this journey, as Luke describes it, appears to us evident 
from the following facts : 1. Long or short, a journey from Galilee to Judea through 
Perea must have taken place ; so much is established by the narratives of Matthew 
and Mark, and indirectly confirmed by that of John, when he mentions a sojourn in 
Perea precisely at the same epoch (10 : 40-42). 2. The duration of this journey must 
have been much more considerable than appears from a hasty glance at the first two 
synoptics. How, in reality, are we to fill the six or seven months which separated 
the feast of Tabernacles (John 7, month of October) from that of the Passover, at 
which Jesus died ? The few accounts, Matt. 19 and 20 (Mark 10), cannot cover such 
a gap. Scarcely is- there wherewith to fill up the space of a week. Where, than, 
did Jesus pass all that time ? And what did He do V It is usually answered, that 
from the feast of Tabernacles to that of the Dedication (December) He remained in 
Judea. That is not possible. He must have gone to Jerusalem in a sort of incognito 
and by way of surprise, in order to appear unexpectedly in that city, and to prevent 
the police measures which a more lengthened sojourn in Judea would have allowed 
His enemies to take against Him. And after the violent scenes related John 
7:1-10:21, He must have remained peacefully there for more than two whole 
months ! Such an idea is irreconcilable with the situation described John 6 : 1 and 
7 : 1-13. 

Jesus therefore, immediately after rapidly executing that journey, returned to 
Galilee. This return, no doubt, is not mentioned ; but no more is that which fol- 
lowed John 5. It is understood, as a matter of course, that so long as a new scene 
of action is not indicated in the narrative, the old one continues. After the stay at 
Jerusalem at the feast of Dedication (John 10 : 22 et seq.), it is expressly said that 
Jesus sojourned in Perea (vers. 40-42) ; there we have the first indication apprising 
us that the long sojourn in Galilee had come to an end. Immediately, therefore, 
after the feast of Tabernacles, Jesus returned to Galilee, and it was then that He 
definitely bade adieu to that province, and set out, as we read Luke 9 : 51, to ap- 
proach Jerusalem slowly and while preaching the gospel. Not only is such a jour- 
ney possible, but it is in a manner forced on us by the necessity of providing con- 
tents for that blank interval in the ministry of Jesus. 3. The indications which 
Luke supplies respecting the scene of this journey have nothing in them but what is 
exceedingly probable. After His first visit to Nazareth, Jesus settled at Capernaum ; 
He made it His own city (Matt. 9 : 1), and the centre of His excursions (Luke 4 : 31 
et seq.). Very soon He considerably extended the radius of His journeys on the side 
of western Galilee (Nam 7:11). Then He quitted His Capernaum residence, and 
commenced a ministry purely itinerant (8 : 1 et seq.). To this period belong His first 
visit to Decapolis, to the east of the lake of Gennesaret, and the multiplication of the 
loaves, to the north-east of that sea. Finally, we learn from Matthew and Mark 
that Jesus made two other great excursions into the northern regions — the one to the 
north-west toward Phoenicia (Luke's great lacuna), the other toward the north-east, to 
the sources of the Jordan (Caesarea Philippi, and the transfiguration). To accom- 
plish His mission toward Galilee there thus remained to be visited only the southern 
parts of this province on the side of Samaria. What more natural, consequently, 
than the direction which He followed in this journey, slowly passing over that south- 
ern part of Galilee from west to east which He bad not before visited, and from 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 28? 

which He could make some excursions among that Samaritan people, at whose hands 
He had found so eager a welcome at the beginning of His ministry ? 

Regarding the visit to Martha and Mary, and the saying 13 : 34, 35, we refer to 
the explanation of the passages. Perhaps the first is a trace (unconscious on the 
part of Luke) of Jesus' short sojourn at Jerusalem at the feast of Dedication. In 
any case, the narrative of Luke is thus found to form the natural transition between 
the synoptical accounts and that of John. And if we do not find in Luke that mul- 
tiplicity of journeys to Jerusalem which forms the distinctive feature of John's Gos- 
pel, we shall at least meet with the intermediate type of a ministry, a great part of 
which (the Galilean work once finished) assumes the form of a prolonged pilgrimage 
in the direction of Jerusalem. 

As to the contents of the ten chapters embraced in this part of Luke, they are 
perfectly in keeping with the situation. Jesus carries along with Him to Judea all 
the following of devoted believers which He has found in Galilee, the nucleus of His 
future Church. From this band will go forth the army of evangelists which, with 
the apostles at its head, will shortly enter upon the conquest of the world in His 
name. To prepare them as they travel along for this task — such is His constant aim. 
He prosecutes it directly in two ways : by sending them on a mission before Him, as 
formerly He had sent the Twelve, and making them serve, as these had done, a first 
apprenticeship to their future work ; then, by bringing to bear on them the chief 
part of His instructions respecting that emancipation from the world and its goods 
which was to be the distinctive character of the life of His servants, and thus gaining 
them wholly for the great task which He allots to them.* 

What are the sources of Luke in this part which is peculiar to him ? According 
to Holtzmann, Luke here gives us the contents of Matthew's Logia, excepting the in- 
troductions, which he adds or amplifies. We shall examine this whole hypothesis 
hereafter. According to Schleiermacher, this narrative is the result of the combina- 
tion of two accounts derived from the journals of two companions of Jesus, the one 
of whom took part in the journey at the feast of Dedication, the other in that of the 
last Passover. Thus he explains the exactness of the details, and at the same time 
the apparent inexactness with which a visit to Bethany is found recorded in the 
midst of a series of scenes in Galilee. According to this view, the short introduc- 
tions placed as headings to the discourses are worthy of special confidence. But 

* We cannot help recalling here the admirable picture which Eusebius draws of 
the body of evangelists who, under Trajan, continued the work of those whom Je3us 
had trained with so much care : " Alongside of him (Quadratus) there flourished at 
that time many other successors of the apostles, who, admirable disciples of those 
great men, reared the edifice on the foundations which they laid, continuing the 
work of preaching the gospel, and scattering abundantly over the whole earth the 
wholesome seed of the heavenly kingdom. For a very large number of His disciples, 
carried away by fervent love of the truth which the divine word had revealed to 
them, fulfilled the command of the Saviour to divide their goods among the poor. 
Then, taking leave of their country, they filled the office of evangelists, coveting 
eagerly to preach Christ, and to carry the glad tidings of God to those who had not 
yet heard the word of faith. And after laying the foundations of the faith in some 
remote and barbarous countries, establishing pastors among them, and confiding to 
them the care of those young settlements, without stopping longer, they hasted on to 
other nations, attended by the grace and virtue of God" (en\ Lcemmer, iii. 38). 
Such were the spiritual children of those whom Jesus had equipped on this journey, 
which some have reckoned an invention of Luke. 



288 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

how has this fusion of the two writings which has merged the two journeys into one 
been brought about ? Luke cannot have produced it consciously ; it must have ex- 
isted in his sources. The difficulty is only removed a stage. How was it possible 
for the two accounts of different journeys to be fused into a unique whole ? As far 
as we are concerned, all that we ^believe it possible to say regarding the source from 
which Luke drew is, that the document must have been either Aramaic, or trans- 
lated from Aramaic. To be convinced of this, we need only read the verse, 9 : 51, 
which forms the heading of the narrative. 

If we were proceeding on the relation of Luke to the two other synoptics, we 
should divide this part into two cycles — that in which Luke moves alone 
(9 : 51-18 : 14), and that in which he moves parallel to them (18 : 15-19 : 27). But 
that division has nothing corresponding to it in the mind of the author, who proba- 
bly knows neither of the two other canonical accounts. He himself divides his nar- 
rative into three cycles by the three observations with which he marks it off : 1st. 
9 : 51-13 : 21 (9 : 51, the resolution to depart ; 2d. 13 : 22-17 : 10 (13 : 22, the direction 
of the journey) ; 3d. 17 : 11-19 : 27 (17 : 11, the scene of the journey). Such, then, 
will be our division. 

fikst cycle.— chap. 9 : 51-13 : 21. 

The Departure from Galilee. — First Period of tlie Journey. 

1. Unfavorable Reception by the Samaritans: 9 : 51-56. — Ver. 51. Introduction. — 
The style of this verse is peculiarly impressive and solemn. The expressions eyevero 
. . . teat koT??pi£e TrpoauTTov oTTJpt&iv betray an Aramaic original. The verb 
cvtinTiripovoQai, to be fulfilled, means here, as in Acts 2:1, the gradual filling up of a 
series of days which form a complete period, and extend to a goal determined before- 
hand ; comp. nAqaOf/vcu, 2 : 21 , 22. The period here is that of the days of the de- 
parting of Jesus from this world ; it began with the first announcement of His suf- 
ferings, and it had now reached one of its marked epochs, the departure from Gali- 
lee. The goal is the dvdArj^ti the perfecting of Jesus ; this expression combines the 
two ideas of His death and ascension." Those two events, of which the one is the 
complement of the other, form together the consummation of His return to the 
Father ; comp. the same combination of ideas in vipuBrjvai and virdyeiv, John 3 : 14, 
8 : 28, 12 : 32, 13 : 3. For the plural fyepai, Luke 1 : 21, 22. Wieseler (in his Synop- 
sis) formerly gave to avdlriibiS the meaning of good reception : " When the time of the 
favorable reception which He had found in Galilee was coming to an end." But as 
this meaning would evidently require some such definition as h Tahtf.aia, he now un- 
derstands by vpep. avaA., " the days during which Jesus should have been received 
by men" (" Beitrage," etc., p. 127 et seq.). But how can we give to a substantive the 
meaning of a verb in the conditional ? and besides, comp. Acts 1 : 2, which fixes the 
meaning of dvdhjfts. On the other hand, when Meyer concludes from the passage 
in Acts that the ascension only is here referred to, he forgets the difference of con- 
text. In Acts 1 this meaning is evident, the death being already a past event ; but 
here it is difficult to believe that the two events yet to come, by which the departure 
of Jesus to heaven {dvdA7j\pi() was to be consummated, are not comprehended in this 
word. The pronoun avrds, by emphasizing the subject, brings into prominence the 
free and deliberate character of this departure. On the nai of the apodosis, see 
pp. 83, 84. This nai {and He also) recalls the correspondence between the divine 



COMMENTARY OJST ST. LUKE. 289 

decree implied in the term av/irrhjpovcQai, to be fulfilled, and the free will with 
which Jesus conforms thereto. The phrase 7tp6cooitoy 6t7]ptC ) eiv corresponds in the 
LXX. to c^£i CIC (J er - 21 : 10) or CjD TT\2 (Ezek. 6 : 2), dresser sou face vers (Oster- 
vald), to give one's view an invariable direction toward an end. The expression sup- 
poses a fear to be surmounted, an energy to be displayed. On the prepositional 
phrase to Jerusalem, comp. 9 : 31 and Mark 10 : 32 : " And they were in the way go- 
ing up to Jerusalem ; and Jesus went before them : and as they followed they were 
afraid." To start for Jerusalem is to march to His death ; Jesus knows it ; the dis- 
ciples have a presentiment of danger. This confirms our interpretation of dvocAr/ipiS. 

Vers. 52-56.* The Refusal. — This tentative message of Jesus does not prove, as 
Meyer and Bleek think, that He had the intention of penetrating farther into Sama- 
ria, and of going directly to Jerusalem in that way. He desired to do a work in the 
north of that province, like that which had succeeded so admirably in the south 
(John 4). 

The sending of messengers was indispensable, on account of the numerous ret- 
inue which accompanied Him. The reading itokiv (ver. 52), though less supported, 
appears to us preferable to the reading ku^tjv, which is probably taken from ver. 56. 
In general, the Samaritans put no obstacle in the way of Jews travelling through 
their country. It was even by this route, according to Josephus, that the Galileans 
usually went to Jerusalem ; but Samaritan toleration did not go so far as to offer 
hospitality. The aim of Jesus was to remove the wall which for long centuries had 
separated the two peoples. The Hebraism, to itpo6ooitov itopevofxeyov (ver. 53), 
&zhn CJD ( E *. 33 : 14 ; 2 Sam. 17 : 11), proves an Aramaic document. The con- 
duct of James and John betrays a state of exaltation, which was perhaps still due to 
the impression produced by the transfiguration scene. The proposal which they 
make to Jesus seems to be related to the recent appearance of Elias. This remark 
does not lose its truth, even if the words, as did Elias, which several Alex, omit, are 
not authentic, 

Perhaps this addition was meant to extenuate the fault of the disciples ; but it 
may also have been left out to prevent the rebuke of Jesus from falling on the proph- 
et, or because the Gnostics employed this passage against the authority of the O. T, 
(Tertullian, Adv. Marc. iv. 23). The most natural supposition after all is, that the 
passage is an explanatory gloss. Is the surname of sons of thunder, given by Jesus to 
James and John, to be dated from this circumstance ? We think not. Jesus would 
not have perpetuated the memory of a fault committed by His two beloved disciples. 
The phrase, He turned (ver. 55), is explained by the fact that Jesus was walking at 
the head of the company. A great many Alex, and Byz. mss. agree in rejecting the 
last words of this verse, And said, Ye know not ; but the oldest versions, the Itala 
and Peschito, confirm its authenticity ; and it is probable that the cause of the omis- 
sion is nothing else than the confounding of the words KAI EME with the following 

• * Ver. 52. &. r A. 24Mnn. It. Vg. read itokiv instead of xgdjutjv. Ver. 54. &. B. 
some Mnn. omit avrov after juaOr/rau &. B. L. Z. 2 Mnn. It aU i. Syr cul . omit the 
words caS nai HkiaS eitoirjdev. Ver. 55. &. A. B. C. E. G. H. L. S. V. X. A. Z. 64 
Mnn omit the words nai enter ovk oidare oiov itvevuaToS edre v^eiS, which are 
found in D. F w . K. M. U. T\ A. n. the majority of the Mnn. Syr. ltP lerI <i ne . Ver. 56. 
The T. R. adds at the beginning of the verse : o yap viot tov avBpoaitov ovk r/kbe 
tpvxaS avSpaoitcov aitokedai cchXa 6oo6ai, following F w . K. M. U. I\ A. fl. almost 
all the Mnn. Syr. ItP le,i i««. These words are omitted in the other 14 Mjj. 65 Mnn, 
lt alit i. 



290 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

KAl EIIopEvOrj. They may be understood in three ways : either interrogatively, 
"Know ye not what is the new spiritual reign which I bring in, and of which you 
are to be the instruments, that of meekness?" or affirmatively, with the same sense, 
" Ye know not yet . . ." The third meaning is much more severe : " Ye know 
not of what spirit you are the instruments when speaking thus ; you think that you 
are working a miracle of faith in my service, but you are obeying a spirit alien from 
mine." This last meaning, which is that of St. Augustine and of Calvin, is more in 
keeping with the expression £7£srzfii??6ev, He rebuked them. 

The following words (ver. 56), For tlie Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, 
but to save them, are wanting in the same authorities as the preceding, and in the 
Cantabrigian besides. It is a gloss brought in from 19 : 10 and Matt. 18 ; 11. In 
these words there are, besides, numerous variations, as is usual in interpolated pas- 
sages. Here, probably, we have the beginning of those many alterations in the text 
which are remarked in this piece. The copyists, rendered distrustful by the first 
gloss, seem to have taken the liberty of making arbitrary corrections in the rest of 
the passage. The suspicion of Gnostic interpolations may have equally contributed 
to the same result. 

Jesus offered, but did not impose Himself (8 : 37) ; He withdrew. Was the other 
village where He was received Jewish or Samaritan ? Jewish, most probably ; other- 
wise the difference of treatment experienced in two villages belonging to the same 
people would have been more expressly emphasized. 

2. The Three Disciples: 9:57-62. — Two of these short episodes are also con- 
nected in Matthew (chap. 8) ; but by him they are placed at the time when Jesus is 
setting out on His excursion into Decapolis. Meyer and Weizsacker prefer the situa- 
tion indicated by Matthew. The sequel will show what we are to think of that 
opinion. 

1st. Vers. 57 and 58.* Luke says, a certain man; in Matthew it is a scribe. 
Why this difference, if they follow the same document ? The homage of the man 
breathed a blind confidence in his own strength. The answer of Jesus is a call to 
self-examination. To follow such a Master whithersoever He goeth, more is needed 
than a good resolution ; he must walk in the way of self -mortification (9 : 23). f The 
word K<xradKjjvGa6i$ strictly denotes shelter under foliage, as opposed to holes in the 
earth. Night by night Jesus received from the hand of His Father a resting-place, 
which He knew not ia the morning ; the beasts were better off in respect of comfort. 
The name Son of man is employed with precision here to bring out the contrast 
between the Lord of creation and His poorest subjects. This offer and answer are 
certainly put more naturally at the time of final departure from Galilee, than at the* 
beginning of a few hours' or a few days' excursion, as in Matthew. 

2d. Vers. 59, 604 Luke says, another (individual) ; Matthew, another of His 
disciples. The scribe had offered himself ; this latter is addressed by Jesus. Luke 
alone indicates the contrast which* the succeeding conversation explains. Here we 

* Ver. 57. &. B. D. L. Z. some Mnn. It*"*, omit xvpis. 

f The following is M. Renan's commentary on this saying : " His vagrant life, at 
first full of charms for him, began to weigh heavily on him" (" Vie de Jesus," 13th 
ed. p. 337). Here certainly is one of the strangest liberties with the history of Jesus 
which this author has allowed himself. The saying breathes, 'on the contrary, the 
most manly courage. 

i Ver. 59. B. D. V. omit xvpis. 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 291 

have no more a man of impulse, presumptuous and without self -distrust. On the 
contrary, we have a character reflecting and wary even to excess. Jesus has more 
confidence in him than in the former ; He stimulates instead of correcting him. 
Could the answer which He gives him (ver. 60) be altogether justified in the situation 
which Matthew indicates, and if what was contemplated was only a short expedition, 
in which this man without inconvenience could have taken part ? In the position 
indicated by Luke, the whole aspect of the matter changes. The Lord is setting out, 
not again to return ; will he who remains behind at this decisive moment ever rejoin 
Him ? There are critical periods in the moral life, when that which is not done at 
the moment will never be done. The Spirit blows ; its action over, the ship will 
never succeed in getting out of port. But, it is said, to bury a father is a sacred 
duty ; Jesus has no right to set aside such a duty. But there may be conflicting 
duties ; the law itself provided for one, in cases analogous to that which is before us. 
The high priest and the Nazarites, or consecrated ones, were not to pollute themselves 
for the dead, were it even their father or mother (Lev. 21 : 11 ; Num. 6 : 6, 7) ; that is 
to say, they could neither touch the body to pay it the last duties, nor enter the 
house where it lay (Num. 19 : 14), nor ^ake part in the funeral meal (Hos. 9 : 4). All 
that Jesus does here is to apply the moral principle implicitly laid down by the 
law — to wit, that in case of conflict, spiritual duty takes precedence of the law of 
propriety. If his country be attacked, a citizen will leave his father's body to ran 
to the frontier ; if his own life be threatened, the most devoted son will take to flight, 
leaving to others the care of paying the last honors to his father's remains. Jesus 
calls upon this man to do for the life of his soul what every son would do for that of 
his body. It must be remembered that the pollution contracted by the presence of 
a dead body lasted seven days (Num. 19 : 11-22). What would have happened to 
this man during these seven days ? His impressions would have been chilled. 
Already Jesus saw him plunged anew in the tide of his ordinary life, lost to the king- 
dom of God. There was needed in this case a decision like that which Jesus had 
just taken Himself (ver. 51). 'A -xeXBgov (strictly, from the spot) is opposed to every 
desire of delay ;' the higher mission, the spiritual Nazariteship, begins immediately. 
From the word dead, on the double meaning of which the answer of Jesus turns, 
there is suggested the judgment which He passed on human nature before its re- 
newal by the gospel. This saying is parallel to that other, " If ye who are evil 
. . ." and to Paul's declaration, "Ye were dead in your sins . . ." (Eph. 2 : 1). 
The command, "Preach the kingdom of God,' : justifies, by the sublimity of the 
object, the sacrifice demanded. The diet in 8id.yye.XkE indicates diffusion. The 
mission of the seventy disciples, which immediately follows, sets this command in its 
true light. Jesus had a place for this man to fill in that army of evangelists which He 
purposed to send before Him, and which at a later date was to labor in changing the 
aspect of the world. Everything in this scene is explained by the situation in which 
Luke places it. Clement of Alexandria relates (Strom. 3 : 4) that the name of this 
man was Philip. In any case, it could not have been the apostle of that name who 
had long been following Jesus (John 6) ; but might it not be the deacon Philip, who 
afterward played so important a part as deacon and evangelist in the primitive 
Church ? If it is so, we can understand why Jesus did not allow such a prize to 
escape Him. 

3d. Vers. 61, 62. This third instance belongs only to Luke. It is, as it were, the 
synthesis of the two others. This man offers himself, like the first ; and yet he tern- 



292 COMMENTARY 'ON ST. LUKE. 

porizes like the second. The word dire or d.6 6 86b at, strictly, to leave one's place in tlie 
ranks, rather denotes here separation from the members of his house, than renuncia- 
tion of his goods (14:33). The preposition eis, which follows toiS, is better ex- 
plained by taking the pronoun in the masculine sense. There are, in the answer of 
Jesus, at once a call to examine himself, and a summons to a more thorough decision. 
The figure is that of a man who, while engaged in labor (aor. eniftaXoor), instead of 
\ keeping his eye on the furrow which he is drawing (pres. fiheitcov), looks behind at 
some object which attracts his interest. He is only half at work, and half work only 
will be the result. What will come of the divine work in the hands of a man who 
devotes himself to it with a heart preoccupied with other cares ? A heroic impulse, 
without afterthought, is the condition of Christian service. In the words, fit for the 
kingdom of God, the two ideas of self -discipline and of work to influence others are 
not separated, as indeed they form but one. This summons to entire renunciation is 
much more naturally explained by the situation of Luke than by that of Matthew. 

Those three events had evidently been joined together by tradition, on account of 
their homogeneous nature, like the two Sabbatic scenes, 6 : 1-11. They were ex- 
amples of the discriminating wisdom with which Jesus treated the most diverse cases. 
This group of episodes was incorporated by the evangelists of the primitive Church 
in either of the traditional cycles indifferently. Accordingly, in Matthew it takes its 
place in the cycle of the Gadarene journey. Luke, more exact in his researches, has 
undoubtedly restored it to its true historical situation. For although the three events 
did not occur at the same time, as might appear to be the case if we were to take his 
narrative literally, all the three nevertheless belong to the same epoch, that of the 
final departure from Galilee. Holtzmann, who will have it that Matthew and Luke 
both borrowed this piece from the Logia, is obliged to ask why Matthew has cut off 
the third case ? His answer is : Matthew imagined that this third personage was no 
other than the rich young man whose history he reckoned on giving later, in the form 
in which he found it in the other common source, the original Mark. Luke had not 
the same perspicacity ; and hence he has twice related the same fact in two different 
forms. But the rich young man had no thought of asking Jesus to be allowed to 
follow Him ; what filled his mind was the idea of some work to be done which 
would secure his salvation. The state of soul and the conversation are wholly differ- 
ent. At all events, if the fact was the same, it would be more natural to allow that 
it had taken two different forms in the tradition, and that Luke, not having the same 
sources as Matthew, reproduced both without suspecting their identity. 

3. Ihe Sending of the Seventy Disciples : 10 : 1-24. — Though Jesus proceeded slowly 
from city to city, and from village to village, He had but little time to devote to each 
place. It was therefore of great moment that He should everywhere find His arrival 
prepared for, minds awakened, hearts expectant of His visit. This precaution was 
the more important, because this first visit was to be His last. Accordingly, as He 
had sent the Twelve into the northern parts of Galilee at the period when He was 
visiting them for the last time, He now summons a more numerous body of His 
adherents to execute a similar mission in the southern regions of the province. They 
thus serve under His eyes, in a manner, the apprenticeship to their future calling. 
The recital of this mission embraces — 1st, The SendiDg (vers. 1-16) ; 2d, The Return 
(vers. 17-24). The essential matter always is the discourse of Jesus, in which His 
prof oundest emotions find expression. 

1st. The Sending, vers. 1-16. — Ver. 1.* The Mission.— 'Avadsixrvjui, to put in 

* Ver. 1. B. L. Z. Syr sch . omit uau B. D. M. Syr cur . It*"*. Epiphanius, Augus- 
tine, Recognit. Clement. : sfidojuqHovro Svo. B, K. n. some Mnn. Syr., Svo Svo 
instead of Svo. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 293 

view ; and hence, to elect and install (1 : 80) ; here, to designate. The word instiluer 
(Crampon) would wrongly give a x>ermanent character to this mission. Schleier- 
macher and Meyer think that by the xai srepovi y others also, Luke alludes to the 
sending of the two messengers (9 : 52). But those two envoys are of too widely dif- 
ferent a nature to admit of being put on the same footing, and the term dredei^ev 
could not be applied to the former. The solemn instructions which follow leave no 
room to doubt, that by the others also, Luke alludes to the sending of the Twelve. 
The term krapovS, others, authorizes the view that the Twelve were not compre- 
hended in this second mission ; Jesus kept them at this time by His side, with a view 
to their peculiar training for their future ministry. 

The oscillation which prevails in the mss. between the numbers seventy and seventy- 
two, and which is reproduced in ver. 17, exists equally in several other cases where 
this number appears, e.g. the seventy or seventy-two Alexandrine translators of the 
Old Testament. This is due to the fact that the numbers 70 and 72 are both multi- 
ples of numbers very frequently used in sacred symbolism — 7 times 10 and 6 times 
12. The authorities are in favor of seventy, the reading in particular of the Sina'iticus. 
Does this number contain an allusion to that of the members of the Sanhedrim (71, 
including the president) — a number which appears in its turn to correspond with that 
of the 70 elders chosen by Moses (Num. 11 : 16-25) ? In this case it would be, so to 
speak, an anti- Sanhedrim which Jesus constituted, as, in naming the Twelve, He 
had set over against the twelve sons of Jacob twelve new spiritual patriarchs. But 
there is another explanation of the number which seems to us more natural. The 
Jews held, agreeably to Gen. 10, that the human race was made up of 70 (or 72) 
peoples, 14 descended from Japhet, 30 from Ham, and 26 from Shem. This idea, 
not uncommon in the writings of later Judaism, is thus expressed in the ' ' Clemen- 
tine Recognitions" (ii. 42) : " God divided all the nations of the earth into 72 parts." 
If the choice of the Twelve, as it took place at the beginning, had more particular 
relation to Christ's mission to Israel, the sending of the seventy, carried out at a more 
advanced epoch, when the unbelief of the people was assuming a fixed form, 
announced and prepared for the extension of preaching throughout the whole earth. 
Jesus sent them two and two ; the gifts of the one were to complete those of the 
other. Besides, did not the legal adage say, In the mouth of two or three witnesses 
shall every word be established? Lange translates ov ajxaXXav, "where He should 
have come," as if the end of the visit made by the seventy had been to make up for 
that for which Jesus had not time. This meaning is opposed to the text, and partic- 
ularly to the words before Him. 

Vers. 2-16. The Discourse. — It falls into two parts : Instructions for the mission 
(vers. 2-12), and warnings to the cities of Galilee (vers. 13-16). 

The instructions first explain the reason of this mission (ver. 2) ; then the conduct 
to be observed on setting out and during the journey (vers. 3, 4), at the time of arri- 
val (vers. 5, 6) ; during their sojourn in the case of a favorable reception (vers. 7-9) ; 
finally, on their departure in the case of rejection (vers. 10-12). 

Ver. 2.* " Therefore said He unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labor- 
ers are few ; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He would send forth 
laborers into His harvest." Matthew has this utterance in chap. 9, in presence of 
the Galilean multitudes, and as an introduction to the sending of the Twelve. Bleek 

* Ver. 2. Instead of ow, 8. B. C. D. L. Z. some Mnn. It s1i( ». read Se. 



294 • COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

liiinself acknowledges that it is better pl-aeed by Luke. " The field is the world," 
Jesus had said in the parable of the sower. It is to this vast domain that the very 
strong words of this verse naturally apply, recalling the smilar words, John 4 : 35 : 
" Look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest," uttered in Samaria, and 
on the threshold, as it were, of the Gentile world. The sending of the new laborers 
is the fruit of the prayers of their predecessors. The prep, eh in exfidXXeiv, thrust 
forth, may signify, forth from the Father's house, from heaven, whence real callings 
issue ; or, forth from the Holy Land, whence the evangelization of the Gentiles was 
to proceed. Following on the idea of prayer, the first meaning is the more natural. 

Vers. 3, 4.* " Go your ways ; behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves. 
Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes : and salute no man by the way." They 
are to set out just as they are, weak and utterly unprovided. The first characteristic 
of the messengers of Jesus is confidence. Jesus, who gives them their mission (kyoo 
is certainly authentic), charges Himself with the task of defending them and of pro- 
viding for their wants. 'Tnod^iara, change of sandals ; this is proved by the verb 
fia6raZ ) £iv, to carry a burden. It is difficult to understand the object of the last 
words. Are they meant to indicate haste, as in 2 Kings 4 : 29 ? But the journey of 
Jesus Himself has nothing hurried about it. Does He mean to forbid them, as some 
have thought, to seek the favor of men ? But the words by the way would be super- 
fluous. Jesus rather means that they must travel like men absorbed by one supreme 
interest, which will not permit them to lose their time in idle ceremonies. It is well 
known how complicated and tedious Eastern salutations are. The domestic hearth is 
the place where they are to deliver their message. A tranquillity regins there which 
is appropriate to so serious a subject. The following verses readily fall in with this 
idea. • 

Vers. 5, 6.f " And into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, Peace be to this 
house. And if the (a) son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it : if not, it 
shall turn to you again." The pres. Ei6spxV^ E (B}^.) expresses better than the aor. 
(Alex.) that the entrance and the salutation are simultaneous. The prevailing im- 
pulse, in the servant of Christ, is the desire of communicating the peace with which 
he himself is filled {his peace, ver. 6). If the article before vidi — " the son of peace" 
— were authentic (T. R), it would designate the individual as the object of a special 
divine decree, which is far- fetched. The phrase, son of peace, is a Hebraism. In 
this connection it represents the notion of peace as an actual force which comes to 
life in the individual. The reading of the two most ancient mss., Eitavcatari6ETca, 
is regular (aor. pass, kndrjv). If no soul is found there fitted to receive the influence 
of the gospel salutation, it will not on that account be without efficacy ; it will return 
with redoubled force, as it were, on him who uttered it. 

Vers. 7-94 " And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things 
as they give : for the laborer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house. 
8. And into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set 
before you : 9. And heal the sick that are therein, and say unto them, The kingdom 

* Ver. 3. &. A. B. omit eyoo after idov. Ver. 4. J*. B.\D. L. Z. several Mnn. jurf 
instead of ju^de. 

f Ver. 5. The mss. are divided between eidspxqGBe (T. R.) and ei6eXBt]te (Alex.). 
Ver. 6. T. R. reads o before vioS, with J*, and some Mnn. only. &. B., Eit<xvcatarf6e- 
rai instead of ETtavaitav6Etai. 

% Ver. 7. Etin is omitted by 8. B. D. L. X. Z. 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 295 

of God is come nigh unto you." A favorable reception is supposed. Tha messen- 
ger of Christ, regarding his entrance into that house above everything else as a prov- 
idential event, is to fix his residence there during the entire period of his stay in that 
place (see on 9 : 4). 'Ev avry rtf oinicc, not " in the same house," as if it were kv 
Ty avrxj oixia, but, " in that same house which he entered at first." They are, be- 
sides, to regard themselves immediately as members of the family, and to eat with- 
out scruple the bread of their hosts. It is the price of their labor. They give more 
than they receive. 

In ver. 8 Jesus applies the same principle to the whole city which shall receive 
them. Their arrival reswnbles a triumphal entrance : they are served with food ; 
the sick are brought to them ; they speak publicly. It is a mistake to find in the 
words of Paul, Udv to 7tapariBe/.iEvov e6Biete (1 Cor. 10 : 27), an allusion to this 
ver. 8 ; the object of the two sayings is entirely different. There is here no question 
whatever as to the cleanness or uncleanness of the viands ; we are yet in a Jewish 
world. The accus. government hep vjuaS, unto (upon) you, expresses the efficacy of 
the message, its action upon the individuals concerned. The perf. rjyyixe indicates 
that the approach of the kingdom of God is thenceforth a fact. It is near ; the 
presence of the messengers of the Messiah is the proof. 

Vers. 10-12.* " But into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you not, go 
your ways out into the streets of the same, and say, 11. Even the ver3 r dust of your 
city, which cleaveth onus, we do wipe off against you : notwithstanding be ye sure 
of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. 12. But 1 say unto you, 
that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city. " This proc- 
lamation, and the symbolical act with which it closes, are solemn events ; they will 
play a part in the judgment of those populations. Kai, this very dust. The dat. 
vjj.lv, to you, expresses the idea, :< we return it to you, by shaking it from our feet." 
There is the breaking up of every bond of connection (see 9 : 5). IDJjv indicates, as 
it always does, a restriction : ' ' Further, we have nothing else to announce to you, 
excepting that . . ." In spite of the bad reception, which will undoubtedly pre- 
vent the visit of Jesus, this time will nevertheless be to them the decisive epoch. 
'.E<p vjuaS, upon you, in the T. R. , is a gloss taken from ver. 9. That day may de- 
note the destruction of the Jewish people by the Romans, or the last judgment. The 
two punishments, the one of which is more national, the other individual, are 
blended together in this threatening of the Lord, as in that of John the Baptist (3 : 9). 
Yet the idea of the last judgment seems to be the prevailing one, from what follows, 
ver. 14. 

This threatening, wherein the full gravity of the present time is revealed, and the 
deep feeling expressed which Jesus had of the supreme character of His mission, 
leads the Lord to cast a glance backward at the conduct of the cities whose proba- 
tion is now concluded, and whose sentence is no longer in suspense. The memory 
of the awful words which they are about to hear will follow the disciples on their 
mission, and will impress them with its vast importance. 

Vers. 13-16. f " Woe unto thee, Chorazin ! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida ! for if the 

* Ver. 10. &. B. C. D. L. Z. some Mnn., ei6eX0t}te instead of £id£pxr/60£. Ver. 
11. &. B. D. R. some Mnn. Syr cur . ltP leri qne, add £iS rovS tzoScxS after vjj.gov. 8. B. 
1). L. Z. some Mnn. Syr cl,r . ItP leri( i ue , omit ecp vjiaS. 

f Ver. 15. Instead of rj egoS ovpavov vipaoQEitfa, which the T. R. reads, with 10 
Mjj. almost all the Mnn. Syr 8ch . It* 11 *., the reading is /^ egq$ tov ovpavov vrpGoQ??6i/ 



296 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon which have been done in you, they 
had a great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14. But it shall be 
more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. 15. And thou, 
Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell. 16. He that 
heareth you heareth me ; and he that despiseth you despiseth me ; and he that de- 
spiseth me despiseth Him that sent me. ' ' The name of Chorazin is not found either 
in the O. T. or in Josephus. But Jewish tradition mentions it frequently either under 
the name of Chorazaim, as producing a cheese of inferior quality, or under that of 
Choraschin, as situated in Naphtali.* 

According to Eusebius (" Onomasticon"), Chorazii^ was situated 12 miles 
(4 leagues) — Jerome says, certainly by mistake, in his translation, 2 miles— from 
Capernaum. This situation corresponds exactly with the ruins which still bear the 
name of Bir-Kir&zeh, a little to the north of Tel-Hum, if we place Capernaum in the 
plain of Gennesaret (p. 155). f We do not know any of the numerous miracles 
which this declaration implies. Of those at Bethsaida we know only one. On the 
important consequences which this fact has for criticism, see p. 216. The interpre- 
tation which M. Colanihas attempted to give to the word SwcljueiS in this passage — 
works of holiness — will not bear discussion. 

It is impossible to render well into English the image employed by Jesus. The 
two cities personified are represented as sitting clothed in sackcloth, and covered 
with ashes. The nXr/v, excepting, is related to an idea which is understood : " Tyre 
and Sidon shall also be found guilty ; only, they shall be so in a less degree than 
you." The tone rises (ver. 15) as the mind of Jesus turns to the city which had 
shared most richly in that effusion of grace of which Galilee has just been the subject 
— Capernaum. It was there that Jesus had fixed his residence ; He had made it the 
new Jerusalem, the cradle of the kingdom of God. It is difficult to understand how 
commentators could have referred the words, exalted to heaven, to the commercial 
prosperity of the city, and Stier to its alleged situation on a hill by the side of the 
lake ! This whole discourse of Jesus moves in the most elevated sphere. The point 
in question is the privilege which Jesus bestowed on the city by making it His city 
(Matt. 9 : 1). Notwithstanding the authority of Tischendorf, we unhesitatingly pre- 
fer the received reading r/ vipaoBeida, "which art exalted," to that of some Alex., 
jxi] vipGoBri6y> "Wilt thou be exalted? No, thou wilt come down . . ." The 
meaning which this reading gives is tame and insipid. It has arisen simply from the 
fact that the final jx of Capernaum was by mistake joined to the following 77, which, 
thus become a fxrj, necessitated the change from vTpooBsida to vTpGoBrj6y. This vari- 
ation is also found in Matthew, where the mss. show another besides, 7} vifxaOr/S, 
which gives the same meaning as the T. R. As Heaven is here the emblem of the 
highest divine favors, Hades is that of the deepest abasement. In the O. T. it is the 



in &. B. D. L. Z. Syr cur . It ali< *. B. D. Syr cuv ., uarafirftirj (thou shalt descend) instead 
of ua.Tafiifia6Br]6r) (thou shalt be cast down). The mss. are divided between ovpavov 
and rov ovpavov, adov and rov adov. 

* " Tr. Menachoth," fol. 85, 1 ; " Baba bathra," fol. 15, 1 (see Caspari, " Chron. 
geogr. Einleitung in das Leben Jesu Christi," p. 76). 

f Comp. Van de Velde and Felix Bo vet. The latter says : " They assure me at 
Tiberias that there is on the mountain, at the distance of a league and a half from 
Tel-Hum, a ruin called Bir (Well) Keresoun. This may probably be the Chorazin of 
the Gospel/' " Voyage en Terre-Sainte," p. 415. 



COMMENTARY O^ ST. LUKE. 297 

place of silence, where all earth!}' activity ceases, where all human grandeur returns 
to its nothingness (Ezek. 31 and 32). 

Matthew places this declaration in the middle of the Galilean ministry, immedi- 
ately after the embassy sent by John the Baptist. We can understand without diffi- 
culty the association of ideas which led the evangelist to connect the one of those 
pieces with the other. The impenitence of the people in respect of the forerunner 
was the prelude to their unbelief in respect of Jesus. But does not the historical sit- 
uation indicated by Luke deserve the preference ? Is such a denunciation not much 
more intelligible when the mission of Jesus to those cities was entirely finished ? 
Luke adds a saying, ver. 16, which, by going back on the thought in the first part of 
the discourse, brings out its unity — the position taken up with respect to the mes- 
sengers of Jesus and their preaching, shall be equivalent to a position taken up with 
respect to Jesus, nay, with respect to God Himself. What a grandeur, then, belongs 
to the work which He confides to them ! 

2d. Tlie Return : vers. 17-24. — Jesus had appointed a rendezvous for His disciples 
at a fixed place. From the word v7t£'6rpeipav, tliey returned (ver. 17), it would even 
appear that the place was that from which He had sent them. Did He await them 
there, or did He in the interval take some other direction along with His apostles ? 
The sequel will perhaps throw some light on this question. His intention certainly 
was Himself to visit along with them all those localities in which they had preceded 
Him (ver. 1). This very simple explanation sets aside all the improbabilities which 
have been imputed to this narrative. The return of the disciples was signalized, first 
of all, by a conversation of Jesus with them about their mission (vers. 17-20) ; then 
by an outburst, unique in the life of the Saviour, regarding the unexpected but mar- 
vellous progress of His work (vers. 21-24). 

Vers. 17-20.* TJie Jay of the Disciples. — "And the seventy returned again with 
joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through Thy name. 18. And 
He said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. 19. Behold, I give 
unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the 
enemy : and nothing shall by any means hurt you. 20. Only in this rejoice not, that 
the spirits are subject unto you ; but rejoice because yuur names are written in 
heaven." The phrase, with joy, expresses the tone of the whole piece. The joy of 
the disciples becomes afterward that of Jesus ; and then it bursts forth from His 
heart exalted and purified (ver. 21, et seq.). Confident in the promise of their Master, 
they had set themselves to heal the sick, and in this way they had soon come to 
attack the severest malady of all — that of possession ; and they had succeeded. Their 
surprise at this unhoped-for success is described, with the vivacity of an entirely fresh 
experience by the xixi, "even the devils," and by the pres. vit or a.66 'erai, submit 
themselves. The word eOeoJpovv, 1 was contemplating, denotes an intuition, not a 
vision. Jesus does not appear to have had visions after that of His baptism. The 
two acts which the imperfect I was contemplating shows to be simultaneous, are evi- 
dently that informal perception, and the triumphs of the disciples recorded in ver. 
17 : " While you were expelling the subordinates, I was seeing the master fall." On 

* Ver. 17. B. D. lt ali *. add 6vo after epdourfKovra. Ver. 19. tf. B. C. L. X. 
some Mnn. Vss. and Fathers, dedoona in place of 8i5gjjm, which is the reading of 15 
Mjj. the most of the Mnn. Syr. Justin, Ir. Ver. 20. The paXXov which the T. R. 
reads after x ai P ere $ E * s supported only by X. and some Mnn. &. B. L. X., 
syyeypaitrai instead of £ypaq>rf. 



298 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

the external scene, the representatives on both sides were struggling ; in the inmost 
consciousness of Jesus, it was the two chiefs that were face to face. The fall of 
Satan which He contemplates, symbolizes the complete destruction of his kingdom, 
the goal of that work which is inaugurated by the present successes of the disciples ; 
Comp. John 12 : 31. Nqw the grand work of Satan on the earth, according to Scrip- 
ture, is idolatry. Paganism throughout is nothing else than a diabolical enchantment. 
It has been not unjustly called une possession en grande* Satan sets himself up as 
the object of human adoration. As the ambitious experience satisfaction in the 
incense of glory, so he finds the savor of the same in all those impure worships, 
which are in reality addressed to himself (1 Cor. 10 : 20). There remains never- 
theless a great difference between the scriptural view of Paganism and the opinion 
prevalent among the Jews, according to which every Pagan divinity was a separate 
demon. Heaven denotes here, like kv exovpavwiS, Eph. 6 : 12, the higher sphere 
irom the midst of which Satan acts upon human consciousness. To fall from heaven, 
is to lose this state of power. The figure used by our Lord thus represents the over- 
throw of idolatry throughout the whole world. The aor. 7ts6 ov ra, falling, denotes, 
under the form of a single act, all the victories of the gospel over Paganism from that 
first preaching of the disciples down to the final denouement of the great drama (Rev. 
12). The figure lightening admirably depicts a power of dazzling brilliance, which is 
suddenly extinguished. This description of the destruction of Paganism, as the cer- 
tain goal of the work begun by this mission of the disciples, confirms the aniversalism 
which we ascribed to the number 70, to the idea of harvest, ver. 2, and in general to 
this whole piece. Hofmann refers the word of Jesus, ver. 18, to the devil's original 
fall ; Lange, to his defeat in the wilderness. These explanations proceed from a 
misunderstanding of the context. 

Ver. 19. If we admit the Alex, reading, Sedcoua, 1 have given you, Jesus leads His 
disciples to measure what they had not at first apprehended — the full extent' of the 
power with which He has invested them ; and idov, behold, relates to the surprise 
which should be raised in them by this revelation. He would thus give them the key 
to the unhoped-for successes which they have just won. The pres. Sidaojiii in the T. 
R. relates to the future. It denotes a new extension of powers in view of a work 
more considerable still than that which they have just accomplished, precisely that 
which Jesus has described symbolically, ver. 18 ; and zSov expresses the astonish- 
ment which they might well feel at the yet more elevated perspective. Thus under- 
stood, the sentence is much more significant. Serpents and scorpions are emblems of 
the physical evils by which Satan will seek to hurt the ambassadors of Jesus. The 
expression, all the power of the enemy, embraces all the agencies of nature, of human 
society, of things belonging to the spiritual order, which the prince of this world can 
use to obstruct the work of Jesus. '-Ettz is dependent on h^ov6iav rather than on 
Ttazelv (9 : 1). In the midst of all those diabolical instruments, the faithful servant 
walks clothed with invulnerable armor ; not that he is not sometimes subjected to 
their attacks, but the wounds which he receives cannot hurt him so long as the Lord 
has need of his ministry (the viper at Malta, Peter's imprisonment by Herod, the 
messenger of Satan which buffets Paul). The same thought, with a slight difference 
of expression, is found Mark 16 : 18 ; comp. also Ps. 91 : 13. 

Ver. 20, Yet this victory over the forces of the enemy would be of no value to 

* M. A. Nicolas. 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 299 

themselves, if it did not rest on their personal salvation. Think of Judas, and of 
those who are spoken of in Matt. 7 : 22, et seq. ! TJXr^v, only, reserves a truth more 
important than that which Jesus has just allowed. The word jxaXXov, " rather 
rejoice," which the T. R. reads, and which is found in the Sinai't., weakens the 
thought of Jesus. There is no limitation to the truth, that the most magnificent suc- 
cesses, the finest effects of eloquence, temples filled, conversions by thousands, are 
no real cause of joy to the servant of Jesus, the instrument of those works, except in 
so far as he is saved himself. From the personal point of view (which is that of the 
joy of the disciples at the moment), this ground of satisfaction is and remains the only 
one. The figure of a heavenly register, in which the names of the elect are inscribed, 
is common in the Old Testament (Ex. 32 : 32, 33 ; Isa. 4:3; Dan. 12 : 1). This 
book is the type of the divine decree. But a name may be blotted out of it (Ex. 32 : 33 ; 
Jer. 17 : 13 ; Ps. 69 : 29 ; Rev. 22 : 19) ; a fact which preserves human freedom. 
Between the two readings, hyyiypaitraiy is inscribed, and typdcpr/, was written, it 
is difficult to decide. 

Vers. 21-24. 17ie Joy of Jesus. — We reach a point in the life of the Saviour, the 
exceptional character of which is expressly indicated by the first words of the narra- 
tive, in that same. hour. Jesus has traced to their goal the lines of which His disciples 
discern as yet only the beginning. He has seen in spirit the work of Satan destroyed, 
the structure of the kingdom of God raised on the earth. But by what hands ? By 
the hands of those, ignorant fishermen, those simple rustics whom the powerful and 
learned of Jerusalem call accursed rabble (John 7 : 49), " the vermin of the earth" (a 
rabbinical expression). Perhaps Jesus had often meditated on the problem : How 
shall a work be able to succeed which does not obtain the assistance of any of the 
men of knowledge and authority in Israel ? The success of the mission of the seventy 
has just brought Him the answer of God : it is by the meanest instruments that He 
is to accomplish the greatest of His works. In this arrangement, so contrary to 
human anticipations, Jesus recognizes and adores with an overflowing heart the 
wisdom of His Father. 

Vers. 21, 22.* '• In that same hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I praise Thee, 
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise 
and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes : even so, Father ; for so it seemed 
good in Thy sight. 22. All things are delivered to me of my Father : and no one 
knoweth who the Son is, but the Father ; and who the Father is, but the Son, and 
he to whom the Son will reveal Him." The nrevfia, the spirit, which is here spo- 
ken of, is undoubtedly that of Jesus Himself, as an element of His human Person 
(1 Thess. 5 : 23 ; Heb. 4 : 12 ; Rom. 1 : 9). The spirit, in this sense, is in man the 
boundless capacity of receiving the communications of the Divine Spirit, and conse- 
quently the seat of all those emotious which have God and the things of God for 
their object (see on 1 : 47). We think it necessary to read r<£ nvev^an as dot. 
instr., and that the addition of r65 dyiop {the holy) and of the prep, ev . in some mss. 
arises from the false application of this expression to the Spirit of God. AyaXki- 
6c6Bai y to exult, denotes an inner transport, which takes place in the same deep 

* Ver. 21. The mss. are divided between ev too -rtvEVfiati and too itvEvfxan. 
&. B. D. Z. Syr cur . It ali( J. reject o Ir}6ov<; after itvzvuari, and add tgd ayiao, with 5 
other Mjj. some Mnn. Syr« ch . Ver. 22. 14 Mjj. the most of the Mnn. Syr S( *. lt ah( i. 
here add'the words, uai 6rpacp£iS npoi rovi fiaBrjrai Enter, which are omitted by 
T. R, with ». B. D. L. M. Z. it. some Mnn. Syr cur . ItP leii i ue . 



300 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

regions of the soul of Jesus as the opposite emotion expressed by the £jufipijua6(jai 9 
to groan (John 11 : 33). This powerful influence of external events on the inner 
being of Jesus proves how thoroughly iu earnest the Gospels take His humanity. 
' > E^ojxoXoyei6Baiy strictly, to declare, confess, corresponds in the LXX. to rniD> 1° 
pi'aise. Here it expresses a joyful and confident acquiescence in the ways of God. 
The words Father and Lord indicate, the former the special love of which Jesus feels 
Himself to be the object in the dispensation which He celebrates, the latter the glori- 
ous sovereignty in virtue of which God dispenses with all human conditions of suc- 
cess, and looks for it only from His own power. The close of this verse has been 
explained in this way : " that while Thou hast hid . . . Thou hast revealed ..." 
The giving of thanks would thus be limited to the second fact. Comp. a similar 
form, Isa. 50 : 2, Rom. 6 : 17. But we doubt that this is to impair the depth of our 
Lord's thought. Did not God, in the way in which He was guiding the work of 
Jesus (in Israel), wish quite as positively the exclusion of the wise as the co-operation 
of the ignorant ? The motive for this divine method is apparent from 1 Cor. 1 : 23-31, 
in particular from vers. 29 and 31 : " that no flesh should glory ;" and, " that he 
that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." By this rejection the great are humbled, 
and see that they are not needed for God's work. On the other hand, the mean can- 
not boast of their co-operation, since it is evident that they have derived nothing 
from themselves. We may compare the saying of Jesus regarding the old and the 
new bottles (vers. 37, 38). The wise were not to mingle the alloy of their own sci- 
ence with the divine wisdom of the gospel. Jesus required instruments prepared ex- 
clusively in His own school, and having no other wisdom than that which He had 
communicated to them from His Father (John 17 : 8). When He took a learned man 
for an apostle, He required, before employing him, to break him as it were, by the 
experience of his folly. Jesus, in that hour of holy joy, takes account more defi- 
nitely of the excellence of this divine procedure ; and it is while contemplating its 
first effects that His heart exults and adores. " L'evenement capital de l'histoire du 
monde, ' '* carried out by people who had scarcely a standing in the human race ! Comp. 
John 9 : 39. The vai, " yea, Father," reasserts strongly the acquiescence of Jesus in 
this paradoxical course. Instead of the nom. 6 itaH]p, Father, it might be thought 
that he would have used the voc. itoirEp, O Father ! as at the beginning of the verse. 
But the address does not need to be repeated. The nom. has another meaning : " It 
is as a Father that Thou art acting in thus directing my work." The on, for that or 
because, which follows, is usually referred to an idea which is understood ; " yea, it 
is so, because . . ." But this ellipsis would be tame. It would be better in that 
case to supply the notion of a prayer : " Yea, let it be and remain so, since . . . !" 
But is it not more simple to take on as depending on eqojuoXoyovjuai : "yea, 
assuredly, and in spite of all, 1 praise Thee, because that . . ." The phrase 
svdoH/a s/x7tp. 6ov is a Hebraism GlirP \3B? )1JH% Ex - 28 : 38). Gess thus sums 
up the thought of this verse : " To pride of knowledge, blindness is the answer ; to 
that simplicity of heart which wishes truth, revelation." 

Ver. 22. The words, And He turned Him unto His disciples, which are read here 
by several Mjj., are in vain defended by Tischendorf and Meyer. They are not 
authentic. How indeed could we understand this 6rpacpEii, having turned Himself? 
Turned, Meyer explains, turned from His Father, to whom He has been praying,, 

* Renan, " Vie de Jesus," p. 1. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 301 

toward men. But would the phrase turn Himself back be suitable iu this sense ? "We 
have here a gloss occasioned by the uar idi'av, privately, of ver. 23. The wish has 
to been to establish a difference between this first revelation, made to the disciples in 
general (ver. 22), and the following, more special still, addressed to some of them only 
(ver. 23). Here we have one of the rare instances in which the T. R. (which rejects 
the words) differs from the third edition of Steph. 

The joyful outburst of ver. 21 is carried on without interruption into ver. 22 ; 
only the first impression of adoration gives wa3 T to calm meditation. The experience 
through which Jesus has just passed ha3 transported Him, as it were, into the bosom 
of His Father. He plunges into it, and His words become an echo of the joys of His 
eternal generation. 

As in the passage which precedes (ver. 21), and in that which follows (22b), it is 
only knowledge which is spoken of, the words, " All things are delivered to me of 
my' Father, " are often taken as referring to the possession and communication of 
religious truths, of the knowledge of God. But the work accomplished by the disci- 
ples, on occasion of which Jesus uttered those sayings, was not merely a work of 
teaching— there was necessarily involved in it a display of force. To overturn the 
throne of Satan on the earth, and to put Id its place the kingdom of God, was a mis- 
sion demanding a power of action. But this power was closely connected with the 
knowledge of God. To know God means to be initiated into His plan ; means to 
think with Him, and consequent^ to will as He does. Now, to will with God, and 
to be self- consecrated to Him as an instrument in His service, is the secret cf partici- 
pation in His omnipotence. " The education of souls," Gess rightly observes, " is 
the greatest of the works of Omnipotence." Everything in the universe, accord- 
ingly, should be subordinate to it. There is a strong resemblance between this say- 
ing of Jesus and that of John the Baptist (John 3 : 35) : " The Father loveth the Son, 
and hath given all things into His hand " — a declaration which is immediately con- 
nected with the other relative to the teaching of Jesus : " He whom God hath sent 
speaketh the words of God." 

The gift denoted by the aor. napEdoQrj, are delivered to me, is the subject of an 
eternal decree ; but it is realized progressively in time, like everything which is sub- 
ject to the conditions of human development. The chief periods in its realization are 
these three : The coming of Jesus into the world, His entrance upon His Messianic 
ministry, and His restoration to His divine state. Such are the steps by which the 
new Master took the place of the old (4 : 6), and was raised to Omnipotence. " De- 
livered," Gess well observes, " either for salvation or for judgment." The uai 3 and, 
which connects the two parts of the verse, may be thus paraphrased : and that, be- 
cause . . . The future conquest of* the world by Jesus and His disciples rests on 
the relation which He sustains to God, and with which He identifies His people. 
The perfect knowledge of God is, in the end, the sceptre of the universe. Here there 
is a remarkable difference in compiling between Luke and Matthew : ov8ei$ tityi- 
vgq6k8i, no one recognizes, or discerns, says Matthew. To the idea of knowing, this 
Eiti (to put the finger upon) has the effect of adding the idea of confirming experi- 
mentally. The knowledge in question is one de visu. Luke uses the simple verb 
yivao6xeiv, to know, which is weaker and less precise ; but he makes up for this de- 
ficiency in the notion of the verb by amplifying its regimen, " What is the Father 
. . . what is the Son ;" that is to say, all that God is as a Father to the man who 
has the happiness of knowing Him as a son, and all that the name son includes for 



302 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

the man who has the happiness of hearing it pronounced by the mouth of the Father 
— all that the Father and Son are the one to the other. Perhaps Matthew's form of 
expression is a shade more intellectual or didactic ; that of Luke rather moves in the 
sphere of feeling. How should we explain the two forms, each of which is evidently 
independent of the other? Jesus must have employed in Aramaic the verb y-p, to 
know* Now y-p is construed either with the accusative or with one of the two prep- 
ositions n, in, or ~>y, upon. The construction with one or other of these preposi- 
tions adds something to the notion of the verb. For example, yjO$> t° hear ; 
7 y;ot£J> to listen ; n yjO$, to listen with acquiescence of heart. There is a similar 
difference of meaning between y-p and n y~p or 7y y-p — a difference analogous to 
that between the two expressions, rem cognoscere and cognoscere de re, to know a thing 
and to know of a thing. Thus, in the passage in Job 37 : 16, where y-yi is construed 
with ~>y, upon, the sense is not, " Knowest thou balancings of the clouds?" — Job 
could not but have known the fact which falls under our eyes — but " Understandest 
thou the . . ?" Now if we suppose that Jesus used the verb y^i with one of 
the prepositions n or 7, the two Greek forms may be explained as two different at- 
tempts to render the entire fulness of the Aramaic expression ; that of Matthew 
strengthening the notion of the simple verb by the preposition hiti (recognize) (which 
would correspond more literally with 7*y y-p) ; that of Luke, by giving greater ful- 
ness to the idea of the object, by means of the paraphrase r/S idnr, what is.\ 

A remarkable example, 9 : 3, has already shown how differences of matter and 
form in the reproduction of the words of Jesus by our evangelists are sometimes ex- 
plained with the utmost ease by going back to the Hebrew or Aramaic text4 What 
a proof of the authenticity of those discourses ! What a proof also of the independ- 
ence of our several Greek digests ! 

That exclusive knowledge which the Father and Son have of one another is evi- 
dently not the cause of their paternal and filial relation ; on the contrary, it is the effect 
of it. Jesus is not the Son because He alone perfectly knows the Father, and is 
fully known only by Him ; but He knows Him and is known by Him in this 
way only because He is the Son. In like manner, God is not the Father because 
He alone knows the Son, and is known only by Him ; but this double knowl- 
edge is the effect of that paternal relation which He sustains to the Son. The article 
before the two substantives serves to raise this unique relation above the relative tem- 
poral order of things, and to put it in the sphere of the absolute, in the very essence 
of the two Beings. God did not become Father at an hour marked on some earthly 
dial. If He is a Father to certain beings born in time, it is because He is the Father 
absolutely — that is to say, in relation to a Being who is not born in time, and who is 
toward Him the Son as absolutely. Such is the explanation of the difficult verse, 
Eph. 3 : 15. Mark, who has not the passage, gives another wherein the term the 

* 1 owe the following observations to the kindness of M. Felix Bovet. 

f In the passage quoted from Job, the two principal German translations present 
a remarkable parallel. DeWette: Weisstduum . . ? Ewald : Verstehs du. . ? 
Both have thoroughly apprehended the sense of the original expression ; each has 
sought to reproduce it in his own way. 

X Many other similar examples might be cited, e.g. Luke 6 : 20. If Jesus said Qiijy 
we can explain both the brief 7trGoxoi of Luke as a literal translation ad sensum (ac- 
cording to the known shade which the meaning of ljy bears throughout the Old 
Testament). 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 303 

Son is used in the same absolute sense, 13 : 32 : " But of that day and that hour know- 
eth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither tlie Son, but the Father." 
After words like "these, we cannot admit any radical difference between the Jesus 
of the Synoptics and that of John.* The existence of the Son belonging to the 
essence of the Father, the pre-existence of {he one is implied in the eternity of the 
other. 

Immediate knowledge of the Father is the exclusive privilege of the Son. But it 
becomes the portion of believers as soon as He initiates them into the contents of His 
filial consciousness, and consents to share it with them. By this participation in the 
consciousness of the Son (the work of the Holy Spirit), the believer in his turn at- 
tains to the intuitive knowledge of the Father. Comp. John 1 : 18, 14 : 6, 17 : 26. 
With Gess, we ought to remark the importance of the priority given to the knowledge 
of the Son by the Father over that of the Father by the Son. Were the order inverted, 
the gift of all things, the 7tapa8/8ovoa, would have appeared to rest on the religious 
instruction which Jesus had been giving to men. The actual order makes it the con- 
sequence of the unsearchable relation between Jesus and the Father, in virtue of 
which He can be to souls everything that the F ather Himself is to them. This pas- 
sage (vers. 21, 22) is placed by Matthew, chap. 11, after the denunciation pronounced 
on the Galilean cities, and immediately following on the deputation of John the Bap- 
tist. We cannot comprehend those of our critics, Gess included, who prefer this situa- 
tion to that of Luke. Gess thinks that the disciples (10 : 21) are contrasted with the 
unbelieving Galilean cities. But the whole passage refers to the disciples as instru- 
ments in God's work ; and Jesus contrasts them not with the ignorant Galileans, but 
with the wise of Jerusalem. See Matthew even, ver. 25. As to the following sen- 
tence, ver. 22, Gess thinks that he can paraphrase it thus : " No man, not even John 
the Baptist, knoweth the Son . . . "in order thus to connect it with the account 
of the forerunner's embassy, which forms the preceding context in Matthew. But in 
relation to the preceding verse the word no man alludes not to John, but to the wise 
and learned of Jerusalem, who pretended that they alone had the knowledge of God 
(11 : 52). It is not difficult, then, to perceive the superiority of Luke's context ; 
and we may prove here, as everywhere else, the process of concatenation, in 

* M. Reville has found out a way of getting rid of our passage. Jesus, he will 
have it, said one day in a melancholy tone : " God alone reads my heart to its depths, 
and I alone also know God." And this "perfectly natural" thought, "under the 
influence of a later theology," took the form in which we find it here ("Hist, du 
Dogme de la Div. de J. C." p. 17). M. Reville finds a confirmation of his hypothe- 
sis in the fact that in their present form the words strangely break the thread of the 
discourse. We think that we have shown their relation to the situation in general, 
and to the preceding context in particular. And the searching study of the relations 
between Luke's form and that of Matthew has led us up to a Hebrew formula neces- 
sarily anterior to all " later theology." One must have an exegetical conscience of 
rare elasticity to be able to find rest by means of such expedients. M. Renan having 
no hope of evacuating the words of their real contents, simply sets them down as a 
later interpolation : " Matt. 11 : 27 and Luke 10 : 22 represent in the synoptic system 
a late interpolation in keeping with the type of the Johannine discourses." But 
what ! an interpolation simultaneously in the two writings? in two different contexts? 
in all the manuscripts and in all the versions ? and with the differences which we 
have established and explained by the Aramaic ? Let us take an example : The dox- 
ology interpolated in Matthew (6 : 13), at the end or. the Lord's prayer. It is wanting 
in very many mss. and Vss., and is not found in the parallel passage in Luke. 
Such are the evidences of a real interpolation. 



304 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

virtue of which we find different elements united together in Matt 11 : 7-30 by a 
simple association of ideas in the mind of the compiler. 

With the last words of ver. 22, and he to whom the Son wilt reveal Him, the 
thought of Jesus reverts to His disciples who surround Him, and in whom there is 
produced at this very time the beginning of the promised illumination. He now ad- 
dresses Himself to them. The meditation of ver. 22 is the transition between the 
adoration of ver. 21 and the congratulation which follows. 

Vers. 23 and 24,* " And He turned Him unto His disciples, and said privately, 
Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see : 24. For 1 tell you, that many 
prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen 
them ; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them." Elevated 
as was the conception which the disciples had of the person and work of Jesus, they 
were far from appreciating at its full value the fact of His appearance, and the privi- 
lege of being the agents of such a Master. At this solemn hour Jesus seeks to open 
their eyes. But He cannot express Himself publicly on the subject. It is, as it were, 
in an undertone that He makes this revelation to them, vers. 23 and 24. This last 
sentence admirably finishes the piece. We find it in Matthew, chap. 13, applied to 
the new mode of teaching which Jesus had just employed by making use of the form 
of parables. The expression, those things which ye see, is incompatible with this 
application, which is thus swept away by the text of Matthew himself. Luke here 
omits the beautiful passage with which Matthew (11 : 28-30) closes this discourse : 
" Gome unto me . . ." If he had known such words, would he have omitted 
them ? Is not this invitation in the most perfect harmony with the spirit of his gos- 
pel ? Holtzmann, who feels how much the theory of the employment of a common 
source is compromised by this omission, endeavors to explain it. He supposes that 
Luke, as a good Paulinist, must have taken offence at the word rarteivo'S, humble, 
when applied to Christ, as well as at the terms yoke and burden, which recalled the law 
too strongly. And it is in face of Luke 22 : 27, " I am among you as he that serveth 
. . ." and of 16 : 17, " It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of 
the law to fail . . ." that such reasons are advanced ! His extremity here drives 
Holtzmann to use one of those Tubingen processes which he himself combats 
throughout his whole book. 

Modern criticism denies the historical character of this second mission. It is 
nothing more, Baur alleges, than an invention of Luke to lower the mission of the 
Twelve, and to exalt that of Paul and his assistants, of whom our seventy are pro- 
vided as the precursors. With what satisfaction does not this Luke, who is silent as 
to the effects of the sending of the Twelve, describe those of the present mission ! 
He goes the length of applying to the latter, and that designedly, part of the instruc- 
tions which Jesus had given (Matt. 10) in regard to the former ! Besides ,the other 
Gospels nowhere mention those seventy evangelists whose mission Luke is pleased to 
relate ! Holtzmann, who likewise denies the historical character of the narrative, 
does not, however, ascribe to Luke any deliberate fraud. The explanation of the 
matter is, according to him, a purely literary one. Of the two sources which Mat- 
thew and Luke consulted, the former — that is, the original Mark — recorded the send- 
ing of the Twelve with a few brief instructions, such as we have found in Luke 
9 : 1-6 and Mark 6 : 7-13 ; the second, the Logia, contained the full and detailed dis- 
course which Jesus must have delivered on the occasion, as we read it Matt. 10. 
The ai ithor of our first Gospel saw that the discourse of the Logia applied to the send- 
ing of the Twelve mentioned in the original Mark, aud attached it thereto. Luke 

* Ver. 23. D. Syr cur . ltpiw'W", Vg. omit uar idiav. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 305 

hud not the same perspicacity. After having related the mission of the Twelve 
(9 : 1-6) after the proto-Mark, he found the great discourse in the Logia ; and to get 
a suitable place for it, he thought that he must create a situation at his own hand. 
With this view, but without the least purpose of a dogmatic kind, he imagined a sec- 
ond mission, that of the seventy. 

But if the origin of this narrative were as Baur supposes, how should only the 
Twelve reappear later in the Gospel of Luke (17 : 5, 18 : 31), without ever a word 
more of those seventy ? How should Luke in the Acts make no mention of those 
latter ? Was it not easy and natural, after having invented them, lo give them a part 
to play in the mission organized under Paul's direction ? An author does not lie in 
good earnest, only to forget thereafter to make use of his fraud. We have found 
that, as to the mission of the Twelve, Luke says at least (9 : 10), " And the apostles, 
when they were returned, told Him, all that they had done" (remark the o6a, 
stronger than the simple a) ; while Matthew, after the discourse, adds not a single 
word about the mission and its results ! In short, the narrative of the sending of the 
seventy is so far from being a Paulinist invention, that in a work of the second cen- 
tury, proceeding from the sect most hostile to Paul, we find the following passage 
put in the mouth of Peter (" Recognit. Clem.," i. 24) : " He first chose us twelve, 
whom He called apostles ; then He chose seventy-two other disciples from among 
the most faithful." The old historians have undoubtedly been somewhat arbitrary 
in numbering among those seventy many persons whom they designate as having 
formed part of them. But this false application proves nothing against the fact 
itself ; on the contrary, it attests the impression which the Church had of its reality. 

The opinion of Holtzmann would charge the sacred historian with an arbitrariness 
incompatible with the serious love of historical truth which is expressed, according 
to Holtzmann himself, in his introduction. Besides we shall see (1? : 1-10) how 
entirely foreign such procedure was to the mind of Luke. When, finally, we con- 
sider the internal perfection of his whole narrative, the admirable correspondence 
between the emotions of our Lord and the historical event which gives rise to them, 
have we not a sufficient guarantee for the reality of this episode ? As the account of 
the healing of the lunatic child is the masterpiece of Mark, this description of the 
sending of the seventy disciples is the pearl of Luke. 

4. The Conversation with the Scribe, and the Parable of the Samaritan : 10 : 25-37. 
— Jesus slowly continues His journey, stopping at each locality. The most varied 
scenes follow one another without internal relation, and as circumstances bring them. 
Weizsacker, starting from the assumption that this framework is not historical, has 
set himself to seek a systematic plan, and affects to find throughout an order accord- 
ing to subjects. Thus he would have the parable of the good Samaritan connected 
with the sending of the seventy by its object, which was originally to prove the right 
of the evangelists, to whatever nationality they might belong. But where in the par- 
able is there to be found the least trace of correspondence between the work done by 
the good Samaritan and the function of the evangelists in the apostolic church ? 
How could the original tendency fail to come out at some point of the description ? 
Holtzmann thinks that in what follows Luke conjoins two distinct accounts — that of 
the scribe (vers. 25-28), which we find in Mark 12 : 28 and Matt. 22 : 35, and the par- 
able of the good Samaritan taken from the Logia. The connection which our Gospel 
establishes between the two events (ver. 29) is nothing else than a rather unskilful 
combination on the part of Luke. But there is no proof that the scribe of Luke is the 
same as that spoken of by Mark and Matthew. It is at Jerusalem, and in the days 
which precede the passion, that this latter appears ; and above all, as Meyer acknowl- 
edges, the matter of discussion is entirely different. The scribe of Jerusalem asks 
Jesus which is the greatest commandment. His is a theological question. That of 
Galilee, like the rich young man, desires Jesus to point out to him the means of sal- 
vation. His is a practical question. Was there but one Rabbin in Israel who could 



•306 COMMEKTAEY OK ST. LUKE. 

enter into discussion with Jesus on such subjects ? It is possible, no doubt, that some 
external details belonging to one of those scenes got mixed up in tradition with the 
narrative of the other. But the moral contents form the essential matter, and they 
are too diverse to admit of being identified. As to the connection which ver. 29 
establishes between the interview and the parable which follows, it is confirmed by 
the lesson which flows from the parable (vers. 36, 37), and about the authenticity of 
which there is no doubt. 

Vers. 25-28.* The Work which saves.— In Greece the object of search is truth ; in 
Israel it is salvation. So this same question is found again in the mouth of the rich 
young man. The expression stood up shows that Jesus and the persons who sur- 
rounded Him were seated. Several critics think this " scenery" (Holtzmann) incon- 
sistent with the idea of a journey, as if we had not to do here with a course of 
preaching, and as if Jesus must have been, during the weeks this journey lasts, con- 
stantly on His feet ! The test to which the scribe wished to subject Jesus bore either 
on His orthodoxy or on His theological ability. His question rests on the idea of the 
merit of works. Strictly, on having done what work shall 1 certainly inherit . . . f 
In the term to inherit there is an allusion to the possession of the land of Canaan, 
which the children of Israel had received as a heritage from the hand of God, and 
which to the Jewish mind continued to be the type of the Messianic blessedness. 
The question of Jesus distinguishes between the contents (r/) and the text (aSs) of 
the law. It has been thought that, while saying, How readest thou? Jesus pointed 
to the phylactery attached to the scribe's dress, and on which passages of the law 
were written. But at ver. 28 we should find thou hast well read, instead of thou hast 
answered right. And it cannot be proved that those two passages were united on the 
phylacteries. The first alone appears to have figured on them. 

It is not wonderful that the scribe instantly quotes the first part of the summary 
of the law, taken from Deut. 6:5; for the Jews were required to repeat this sentence 
morning and evening. As to the second, taken from Lev. 19 : 18, we may doubt 
whether he had the readiness of mind to join it immediately with the first, and so to 
compose this magnificent resume of the substance of the law. In Mark 12 and Matt. 
22 it is Jesus Himself who unites those two utterances. It is probable, as Bleek 
thinks, that Jesus guided the scribe by a few questions to formulate this answer. 
Ver. 26 has all the appearance of the opening of a catechetical course. The first part 
of the summary includes four terms ; in Hebrew there are only three — n^>, heart; 
tyD3» soul ; "nXiO> might. The LXX. also have only three, but they translate 27, 
heart, by Siarota, mind ; and this is the word which appears in Luke as the fourth 
term. In Matthew there are three : Siavoi'ais the last ; in Mark, four : 6vve6i% takes 
the place of dictrofa, and is put second. Kapdz'a, the heart, in Mark and Luke is 
foremost ; it is the most general term : it denotes in Scripture the central focus from. 
which all the rays of the moral life go forth ; and that in their three principal direc- 
tions — the powers of feeling, or the affections, t^DJ» the soul, in the sense of feeling ; 
the active powers, the impulsive aspirations, "lltfE, the might, the will ; and the 
intellectual powers, analytical or contemplative, dictro/a } mind. The difference 
between the heart, which resembles the trunk, and the three branches, feeling, will, 
and understanding, is emphatically marked, in the Alex, variation, by the substitu- 

* Ver. 27. &. B. D. A. Z. some Mnn. It ali< i. read, sv oXtj ttj ipvxq, sv oA?/ rrj 
i<5x v£l 3 zv oAtj T V Siavoza, instead of s£ with the genitive. 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 307 

tion of the preposition ev, in, for Ik, with (from), in the three last members. Moral 
life proceeds from the heart, and manifests itself without, in the three forms 'of 
activity indicated. The impulse Godward proceeds from the heart, and is realized in 
the life through the affection, which feeds on that supreme object ; through the will, 
which consecrates itself actively to the accomplishment of His will ; and through the 
mind, which pursues the track of His thoughts, in all His works. The second part 
of the summary is the corollary of the first, and cannot be realized except in connec- 
tion with it. Nothing but the reigning love of God can so divest the individual of 
devotion to his own person, that the ego of his neighbor shall rank in his eyes exactly 
on the same level as his own. The pattern must be loved above all, if the image in 
others is to appear to us as worthy of esteem and love as in ourselves. Thus to love 
isj as Jesus says, the path to life, or rather it is life itself. God has no higher life 
than that of love. The answer of Jesus is therefore not a simple accommodation to 
the legal point of view. The work which saves, or salvation, is really loving. The 
gospel does not differ from the law in its aim ; it is distinguished from it only by its 
indication of means and the communication of strength. 

Vers. 29-37. The good Samaritan. — How is such love to be attained ? This would 
have been the question put by the scribe, had he been in the state of soul which 
Paul describes Rom. 7, and which is the normal preparation for faith. He would 
have confessed his impotence, and repeated the question in a yet deeper sense than at 
the beginning of the interview : What shall 1 do ? What shall I do in order to love 
thus ? But instead of that, feeling himself condemned by the holiness of the law 
which he has himself formally expressed, he takes advantage of his ignorance, in 
other words, of the obscurity of the letter of the law, to excuse himself for not having 
observed it : " What does the word neighbor mean ? How far does its application 
reach?" So long as one does not know exactly what this expression signifies, it is 
quite impossible, he means, to fulfil the commandment. Thus the remark of Luke, 
" willing to justify himself," finds an explanation which is perfectly natural. The 
real aim of the parable of the good Samaritan is to show the scribe that the answer 
to the theological question, which he thinks good to propose, is written by nature on 
every right heart, and that to know, nothing is needed but the will to understand it. 
But Jesus does not at all mean thereby that it is by his charitable disposition, or by 
this solitary act of kindness, that the Samaritan can obtain salvation. We must not 
forget that a totally new question, that of the meaning of the word neighbor, has in- 
tervened. It is to the latter question that Jesus replies by the parable. He lets the 
scribe understand that this question, proposed by him as so difficult, is resolved by a 
right heart, without its ever proposing it at all. This ignorant Samaritan naturally 
(fvaei, Rom. 2 : 14) possessed the light which the Rabbins had not found, or had 
lost, in their theological lucubrations. Thus was condemned the excuse which he 
had dared to advance. May we not suppose it is from sayings such as this that Paul 
has derived his teaching regarding the law written in the heart, and regarding its 
partial observance by the Gentiles, Rom. 2 : 14-16 ? 

Vers. 29-32.* The Priest and the Levite. — Lightfoot has proved that the Rabbins 
did not, in general, regard as their neighbors those who were not members of the 

* Ver. 29. The mss. are divided between dimtovp (T. R.) and dtKacutrat (Alex.). 
Ver. 30. E. G. H. T. V. A. A. several Mnn. It ali( i. Vg., e&dvoav instead of enSvoavTeS. 
&. B. D. L. Z. some Mnn. omit rvyxavovra. Ver. 32. & c . B. L. X. Z. omit yevopevoS. 
5*. D. T, A. several Mnn. Vss. read avrov after ifiov. 



308 COMMEtfTAKY OK ST. LUKE. 

Jewish nation. Perhaps the subject afforded matter for learned debates in their 
schools. The word n2.7jaiov, being without article here, might be taken in strictness 
as an adverb. It is simpler to regard it as the well-known substantive 6 kXtjglov. The 
nai, and, introducing the answer, brings it into relation with the preceding question 
which called it forth. The word vnokafiuv, rejoining, which does not occur again in 
the !N\ T., is put for the ordinary term aTconpiQeig , answering, to give more gravity to 
what follows. The mountainous, and for the most part desert country, traversed by 
the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, was far from safe. Jerome {ad Jerem. 3 : 2) re- 
lates that in his time it was infested by hordes of Arabs. The distance between the 
two cities is seven leagues. The nai, also, before h.K.bvoavTz'i, ver. 30, supposes a first 
act which is self-understood, the relieving him of his purse. There is a sort of irony 
in the Kara ovynvpiav, by chance. It is certainly not by accident that the narrator 
brings those two personages on the scene. The preposition avri in avrnrapfjWe, lie 
passed by, might denote a curve made in an opposite direction ; but it is simpler to 
understand it in the sense of over against. In view of such a spectacle, they pass on. 
Comp. the antithesis irpoae?iQ6v, having gone to Mm, ver. 34. 

Vers. 33-35.* The Samaritan. — For the sake of contrast, Jesus chooses a Samari- 
tan, a member of that half Gentile people who were separated from the Jews by an old 
national hatred. In the matter about which priests are ignorant, about which the 
scribe is still disputing, this simple and right heart sees clearly at the first glance. 
His neighbor is the human being, whoever he may be, with whom God brings him 
into contact, and who has need of his help. The term dSevuv, as he journeyed, con- 
veys the idea that he might easily have thought himself excused from the duty of 
compassion toward this stranger. In every detail of the picture, ver. 34, there 
breathes the most tender pity (kmrhiyxv^n)- Oil and wine always formed part of the 
provision for a journey. We see from what follows that navdoxeiw, signifies not a 
simple caravansary, but a real inn, where people were received for payment. 'Em', 
ver. 35, should be understood as in Acts 3:1: Toward the morrow, that is to say, at 
daybreak. The term k&M6v, when he departed, shows that he was now on horse- 
back, ready to go. Two pence are equal to about Is, Ad. After having brought the 
wounded man the length of the hostelry, he might have regarded himself as dis- 
charged from all responsibility in regard to him, and given him over to the care of 
his own countrymen, saying : " He is your neighbor rather than mine." But the 
compassion which constrained him to begin, obliges him to finish. What a master- 
piece is this portrait ! What a painter was its author, and what a narrator was he 
who has thus transmitted it to us, undoubtedly in all its original freshness ! 

Vers. 36, 37. f The Moral.— The, question with which Jesus obliges the scribe to 
make application of the parable may seem badly put. According to the theme of 
discussion : " Who is my neighbor?" (ver. 29), it would seem that He should have 
asked : Whom, then, wilt thou regard as thy neighbor to guide thee to him, as the 
Samaritan was guided to thy compatriot ? But as the term neighbor implies the idea 
of reciprocity, Jesus has the right of reversing the expressions, and He does so not 
without reason. Is it not more effective to ask : By whom should I like to be suc- 

* Ver. 33. &. B. L. Z. 3 Mnn. omit avrov after iduv. Ver. 35. &. B. D. L. X. Z. 
some Mnn. Syr. It. omit efrMav. B. D. L. Z. some Mnn. Syr cur . It* 11 *, omit avro 
after enrev. 

f Ver. 36. &. B. L. Z. some Mnn. Vss. omit ow after us, Ver. 37. The mss. vary 
between ow (T. R.) and 6e (Alex.) after etne, 



COMMEN'TAKY OK ST. LUKE. 309 

cored in distress ? than Whom should 1 assist in case of distress ? To the first ques- 
tion, the reply is not doubtfuL Self-regard coming to the aid of conscience, all will 
answer : By everybody. The scribe is quite alive to this. He cannot escape, when 
he is brought face to face with the question in this form. Only, as his heart refuses 
to pronounce the word Samaritan with praise, he paraphrases the odious name. On 
the use of fxerd, ver. 37, see on 1 : 58. In this final declaration, Jesus contrasts the 
doing of the Samaritan with the vain casuistry of the Rabbins. But while saying Bo 
thou likewise, He does not at all add, as at ver. 28, and thou shalt live. For benefi- 
cence does not give life or salvation. Were it even the complete fulfilment of the 
second part of the sum of the law, we may not forget the first part, the realization of 
which, though not less essential to salvation, may remain a strange thing to the man 
of greatest beneficence. But what is certain is, that the man who in his conduct 
contradicts the law of nature, is on the way opposed to that which leads to faith and 
salvation (John 3 : 19-21). 

The Fathers have dwelt with pleasure on the allegorical interpretation of this para- 
ble : The wounded man representing humanity ; the brigands, the devil ; the priest 
and Levite, the law and the prophets. The Samaritan is Jesus Himself ; the oil and 
wine, divine grace ; the ass, the body of Christ ; the inn, the Church ; Jerusalem, 
paradise ; the expected return of the Samaritan, the final advent of Christ. This 
exegesis rivalled that of the Gnostics. 

5. Martha and Mary : 10 : 38-42.— Here is one of the most exquisite scenes 
which Gospel tradition has preserved to us ; it has been transmitted by Luke alone. 
What surprises us in the narrative is, the place which it occupies in the middle of a 
journey through Galilee. On the one hand, the expression ev rCi rropeveoOai avrovs, as 
they went, indicates that we have a continuation of the same journey as began at 
9 : 51 ; on the other, the knowledge which we have of Martha and Mary, John 11, does 
not admit of a doubt that the event transpired in Judea at Bethany, near Jerusalem. 
Hengstenberg supposes that Lazarus and his two sisters dwelt first in Galilee, and 
afterward came to settle in Judea. But the interval between autumn and the follow- 
ing spring is too short to allow of such a change of residence. In John 11 : 1, Beth- 
any is called the town of Mary and her sister Martha, a phrase which assumes that 
they had lived there for a length of time. The explanation is therefore a forced one. 
There is another more natural. In John 10 there is indicated a short visit of Jesus to 
Judea in the month of December of that year, at the feast of dedication. Was not 
that then the time when the visit took place which is here recorded by Luke ? Jesus 
must have interrupted His evangelistic journey to go to Jerusalem, perhaps while the 
seventy disciples were carrying out their preparatory mission. After that short ap- 
pearance in the capital, He returned to put Himself at the head of the caravan, to 
visit the places where the disciples had announced His coming. Luke himself cer- 
tainly did not know the place where this scene transpired (in a certain village) ; he 
transmits the fact to us as he found it in his sources, or as he had received it by oral 
tradition, without more exact local indication. Importance had been attached rather 
to the moral teaching than to the external circumstances. It is remarkable that the 
scene of the preceding parable is precisely the country between Jericho and Jerusa- 
lem. Have we here a second proof of a journey to Judea at that period ? 

Here we must recall two things : 1. That the oral tradition from which our writ- 
ten compilations (with the exception of that of John) are derived, was formed imme- 
diately after the ministry of our Lord, when the actors in the Gospel drama were yet 



310 COMMENTARY OH ST. LUKE. 

alive, and that it was obliged to exercise great discretion in regard to the persons 
who figured in it, especially where women were concerned ; hence the omission of 
many proper names, 2. That it is John's Gospel which has restored those names to 
the Gospel history ; but that at the time when Luke wrote, this sort of incognito still 
continued. 

Vers. 38-40.* Martha's Complaint. — It is probably the indefinite expression of 
Luke, into a certain milage, which John means to define by the words : Bethany, the 
town of Mary and her sister Martha, 11:1; as also the words of Luke 5 : 39, which sat 
at Jesus' feet, seem to be alluded to in those others : But Mary sat still in the house, 
11 : 20. The entire conduct of Martha and Mary, John 11, reproduces in every par- 
ticular the characters of the two sisters as they appear from Luke 10. It has been 
supposed that Martha was the wife of Simon the Leper (Matt.* 26 : 6 ; Mark 14 :3), 
and that her brother and sister had become inmates of the house. All this is pure 
hypothesis. If the two words % and nai, " which also sat," really belong to the text, 
Luke gives us to understand that Mary began by serving as well as Martha ; but 
that, having completed her task, she also sat to listen, rightly considering that, with 
such a guest, the essential thing was not serving, but above all being herself served. 
Jesus was seated with His feet stretched behind Him (7 : 38). It was therefore at 
His feet behind Him that she took her place, not to lose any of His words. The 
term itepuoTraTo (was cumbered), ver. 40, denotes a distraction at once external and 
moral. The word eTviardaa, came to Rim, especially with de adversative, but, indi- 
cates a sudden suspension of her feverish activity ; at the sight of Jesus and her sis- 
ter, who was listening to Him with gladness, Martha stops short, takes up a bold at- 
titude, and addresses the latter, reproaching her for her selfishness, and Jesus for His 
partiality, implied in the words, Dost Thou not caret Nevertheless, by the very 
word which she uses, KaTzkmz, hath left me (this reading is preferable to the imper- 
fect KareleLTte), she acknowledges that Mary up till then had taken part in serving. 
In the compound cvvavTikau&dvecBai three ideas are included — charging one's self with 
a burden (the middle) for another (awl), and sharing it with him (avv). 

Vers. 41, 42. f The Answer, — Jesus replies to the reproach of Martha by charging 
her with exaggeration in the activity which she is putting forth. If she has so much 
trouble, it is because she Wishes it. Mspcjuvav, to be careful, refers to moral preoccu- 
pation ; Tvp(3afro6cu, to be troubled, to external agitation. The repetition of Martha's 
name in the answer of Jesus is intended to bring her back gently, but firmly, from 
her dissipation of mind. The expression in which Jesus justifies His rebuke is at 
once serious and playful. According to the received reading, One thing only is need- 
ful, the thought might be : "A single dish is sufficient. " But as it was certainly not 
a lesson on simplicity of food that Jesus wished to give here, we must in that case 
admit a double reference, like that which is so often found in the words of Jesus 
(John 4 : 31-34) : " A single kind of nourishment is sufficient for the body, as one 

* Ver. 38. &. B. L. Z. Syr cur ., ev 6e to nopEVEodai instead of ejeveto 6e ev to 
TcopevEadcu. &. C. L. Z., oLKiav instead of olkov. &*. L. Z. omit avT7]S. B. omits eiS 
. . . avTTjS. Ver. 39. &. L*. Z. omit 77. D. It ali i. omit mi after tj. Instead of 
TrapaKaQtaaca (T. R.), &. A. B. C. L. Z., irapaKaQeaBeiaa. Instead of irapa, the same, 
npos. Instead of Irjaov, the same, Kvptov. Ver. 40. Instead of fcaTelnrev, 15 Mjj. 
KdTE?Le ltcev. D. L. Z. , eltxov instead of ELITE. 

f Ver. 41. &. B. L. It ali i. Vg., o Kvpios instead of o IrjaovZ. &. B. C. D. L., QopvPafr 
instead of Tvpfiafy. Ver. 42. &. B. L. 2 Mnn., ohiyav 6e egtl X9 eia V fy o5 instead of 

EVOS <$£ EGTL XP £La - 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. oil 

only is necessary for the soul." This is probably the meaning of the Alex, reading : 
" There needs but little (for the body), or even but one thing (for the soul). " There 
is subtilty in this reading ; too much perhaps. It has against it 15 Mjj. the Peschito 
and a large number of the copies of the Itala. It is simpler to hold that by the ex- 
pression one thing, Jesus meant to designate spiritual nourishment, the divine word, 
but not without an aljusion to the simplicity in physical life which naturally results 
from the preponderance given t© a higher interest. The expression ayaBfj fiepis, that 
good part, alludes to the portion of honor at a feast. The pronoun #r£S, which as 
such, brings out the relation between the excellence of this portion, and the impossi- 
bility of its being lost to him who has chosen it, and who perseveres in his choice. 
In this defence of Mary's conduct there is included an invitation to Martha to imitate 
her at once. 

The two sisters have often been regarded as representing two equally legitimate 
aspects of the Christian life, inward devotion and practical activity. But Martha 
does not in the least represent external activity, such as Jesus approves. Her very 
distraction proves that the motive of her work is not pure, and that her self-impor- 
tance as hostess has a larger share in it than it ought. Ou the other hand, Mary as 
little represents a morbid quietism, requiring to be implemented by the work of an 
active life. Mary served as long as it appeared to her needful to do so. Thereafter 
she understood also that, when we have the singular privilege of welcoming a Jesus 
under our roof it is infinitely more important to seek to receive than to give. Be- 
sides some months later (John 12 : 3 et seq.) Mary clearly showed that when action or 
giving was required she was second to none. 

The Tubingen school has discovered depths in this narrative unknown till it ap- 
peared. In the person of Martha, Luke seeks to stigmatize Judaizing Christianity, 
that of legal works ; in the person of Mary he has exalted the Christianity of Paul, 
t that of justification without works and by faith alone.- What extraordinary preju- 
dice must prevail in a mind which can to such a degree mistake the exquisite sim- 
plicity of this story ! Supposing that it really had such an origin, would not this 
dogmatic importation have infallibly discolored both the matter and form of the nar- 
rative ? A time will come when those judgments of modern criticism will appear 
like the wanderings of a diseased imagination. 

.6. Prayer : 11 : 1-13. — Continuing still to advance leisurely, the Lord remained 
faithful to His habit of prayer. He was not satisfied with that constant direction of 
soul toward His Father, to which the meaning of the command, Pray without ceas- 
ing, is often reduced. There were in His life special times and positive acts of 
prayer. This is proved by the following words : When Re ceased graying. It was 
after one of those times, which no doubt had always something solemn in them for 
those who surrounded Him, that one of His disciples, profiting by the circumstance, 
asked Him to give a more special directory on the subject of prayer. Holtzmann is 
just enough to protest against this preface, ver. 1, being involved in the wholesale re- 
jection which modern criticism visits on those short introductions of Luke. He 
finds a proof of its authenticity in the detail so precisely stated : " Teach us to pray, 
as John also taught his disciples. " It is, according to him, one of the cases in which 
the historical situation was expressly stated in the Logia. The Lord's Prayer, as 
well as the instructions about prayer which follow, are placed by Matthew in the 
course of the Sermon on the Mount (chap. 6 and 7). Gess thinks that this model of 
prayer may have been twice given forth. Why might not a disciple, some months 



312 COMMENTABY OK ST. LUKE. 

after the Sermon on the Mount, have put to Jesus the request which led Him to re- 
peat it ? And as to the context in Matthew, Luke 20 : 47 proves that much speaking 
belonged as much to the prayers of the Pharisees as to those of the heathen. That is 
true ; but the prolixity to which the Lord's prayer is opposed in the Sermon on the 
Mount, and by means of which the worshipper hopes to obtain a hearing, has noth- 
ing to do with that ostentation before men which Jesus stigmatizes in Matt. 6 as 
characterizing the righteousness of the Pharisees. And the repetition of this model 
of prayer, though not impossible, is far from probable. What we'have here, there- 
fore, is one of those numerous elements, historically alien to the context of the Ser- 
mon on the Mount, which are found collected in this exposition of the new right- 
eousness. The reflections regarding prayer, Matt. 7, belong to a context so broken, 
that if the connections alleged by commentators show to a demonstration what asso- 
ciation of ideas the compiler has followed in placing them here, they cannot prove 
that Jesus could ever have taught in such a manner. In Luke, on the contrary, the 
connection between the different parts of this discourse is as simple as the occasion is 
natural. Here, again, we find the two evangelists such as we have come to know 
them : Matthew teaches, Luke relates. 

This account embraces : 1st. The model of Christian prayer (vers. 1-4) ; 2d. An 
encouragement to pray thus, founded on the certainty of being heard (vers. 5-13). 

1st. Vers. 1-4.* The Model of Prayer. — " And it came to pass, that as He was 
praying in a certain place, when He ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him, 
Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. 2. And He said unto them, 
When ye pray, say, Father, hallowed be thy name ; Thy kingdom come ; 3. Give 
us day by day our needful bread ; 4. And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive 
every one that is indebted to us ; and lead us not into temptation." It was the cus- 
tom among the Jews to pray regularly three times a day. John had kept up the 
practice, as well as that of fasting (ver. 33) ; and it was doubtless with a view to this 
daily exercise that he had given a form to his disciples. In the words, wlien ye pray, 
say, the term TTpocevxecQai, to pray, denotes the state of adoration, and the word say, 
the prayer formally expressed. It is evident that this order, when ye pray, say, does 
not mean that the formula was to be slavishly repeated on every occasion of prayer ; 
it was the type which was to give its impression to every Christian prayer, but in a 
free, varied, and spontaneous manner. The distinctive characteristic of this formu- 
lary is the filial spirit, which appears from the firs! in the invocation, Father ; then 
in the object and order of the petitions. Of the five petitions which the Lord's 
Prayer includes in Luke, two bear directly on the cause of God — they stand at the 
head ; three to the wants of man — they occupy the second place. This absolute 

* Ver. 1. & a . A. some Mnn. Syr cur . ItP le »i ue omit nai before Iwai-^5. Ver. 2. The 
words rjjuuv ev tols ovpavoic are omitted by &. B. L. some Mnn. Tert. ; they are found 
in T. R., according to 18 Mjj. almost all the Mnn. Syr. It. Ver. 3. Instead of eIBetu 
t) (iaaLleta gov, Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus Confessor seem to have read, eTSetu 
ayiov iTVEVfia gov scp' rj/uai kcu KaQapLaaro) rjiiaS ; others to have added to the end of the 
petition an explanation like this : row' egtl to izvEVfia ayiov. B. L. some Mnn. Syr cur . 
I^aiiq Yg T e rt. Aug. omit the words ysvijQijTu . . . yrji, which are read by the T. R. 
with 19 Mjj. almost all the Mnn. Syr sch . ItP leri( i ue ; Tert. (de Oratione) places them be- 
tween the first and second petitions. Ver. 3. Instead of vf iuV Marcion appears to 
have read gov. Ver. 4. &. B. L. some Mnn. Vg. Orig. Cyril. Tert. Aug. omit the 
words aXk . . . Trovr/pov, which are found in the T. R. with 17 Mjj. almost all the 
Mnn. Syr. ltP leri i ue . 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 313 

priority given to divine interests implies an emptying of ourselves, a heavenly love 
and zeal which are not natural to man, and which suppose in us the heart of a true 
child of God, occupied above all things with the interests of his heavenly Father. 
After having thus forgotten himself, and become lost as it were in God, the Christian 
comes back to himself ; but as it is in God that he finds himself again, he does not 
find himself alone. He contemplates himself as a member of God's family, and says 
thenceforth : we, and not I. The fraternal spirit becomes, in the second part of his 
prayer, the complement of th'e filial spirit which dictated the first ; intercession is 
blended with personal supplication. The Lord's Prayer is thus nothing else than the 
summary of the law put into practice ; and this summary so realized in the secrecy 
of the heart, will naturally pass thence into the entire life. 

It appears certain from the mss. that in the text of Luke the invocation ought to 
be reduced to the single word Father. The following words, which art in heaven, are 
a gloss taken from Matthew, but agreeable, no doubt, to the real tenor of our Lord's 
saying. In this title Father there is expressed the double feeling of submission and 
confidence. The name is found in the Old Testament only in Isa. 63 : 16 (comp. Ps. 
103 : 13), and is employed only in reference to the nation as a whole. The pious 
Israelite felt himself the servant of Jehovah, not His child. The filial relationship 
which the believer sustains to God rests on the incarnation and revelation of the Son. 
Luke 10 : 22 : " He to whom the Son will reveal Him. . . ." Comp, John 1 : 12. 

The first two petitions relate, not to the believer himself, or the world which sur- 
rounds him, but to the honor of God ; it is the child of God who is praying. Wet- 
stein has collected a large number of passages similar to those two petitions, derived 
from Jewish formularies. The' Old Testament itself is filled with like texts. But 
the originality of this first part of the Lord's Prayer is not in the words ; it is in the 
filial feeling which is here expressed by means of those already well-known terms. 
The name of God denotes, not His essence or His revelation as is often said, but 
rather the conception of God, whatever it may be, which the worshipper bears in 
his consciousness — His reflection in the soul of His creatures. Hence the fact that 
this name dwells completely only in One Being, in Him who is the adequate image 
of God, and who alone knows Him perfectly ; that One of whom God says, Ex. 
23 : 21, " My name is in Him." Hence the fact that this name can become holier 
than it is — be hallowed, rendered holy. What unworthy conceptions of God and His 
character still reign among men ! The child of God prays Him to assert His holy 
character effectually in the minds of men, in order that all impure idolatry, gross or 
refined, as well as all pharisaic formalism, may forever come to an end, and that 
every human being may exclaim with the seraphim, in rapt adoration : Holy, holy, 
holy ! (Isa. 6). The imper. aor. indicates a series of acts by which this result shall be 
brought about. 

The holy image of God once shining in glory within the depths of the heart, the 
kingdom of God can be established there. For God needs only to be well known in 
order to reign. The term kingdom of God denotes an external and social state of 
things, but one which results from an inward and individual change. This petition 
expresses the longing of the child of God for that reconciled and sanctified humanity 
within the bosom of which the will of the Father will be done without opposition. 
The aor. eXQiro), come, comprises the whole series of historical facts which will realize 
this state of things. The imperatives, which follow one another in the Lord's Prayer 
with forcible brevity, express the certainty of being heard. 



314 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

The third petition, " Thy will be . . ." which is found in the T. R., follow- 
ing several mss., is certainly an importation from Matthew. It is impossible to dis- 
cover any reason why so many mss. should have rejected it in Luke. In Matthew it 
expresses the state of things which will result from the establishment of the kingdom 
of God over humanity so admirably, that there is no reason for doubting that it 
belongs to the Lord's Prayer as Jesus uttered it. The position of this petition 
between the two preceding in a passage of Tertullian. may arise either from the fact 
that it was variously interpolated in Luke, or from the fact that, in consequence of 
the eschatological sense which was given to the term kingdom of God, it was thought 
right to close the first part of the prayer with the petition which related to that object. 
Ver. 3. From the cause of God, the worshipper passes to the wants of God's family. 
The connection is this : " And that we may be able ourselves to take part in the 
divine work for whose advancement we pray, Give us, Forgive us, ' ' etc. In order 
to serve God, it is first of all necessary that we live. The Fathers in general under- 
stood the word bread in a spiritual sense : the bread of life (John 6) ; but the literal 
sense seems to us clearly to flow from the very general nature of this prayer, which 
demands at least one petition relating to the support of our present life. Jesus, who 
with His apostles lived upon the daily gifts of His Father, understood by experience, 
better perhaps than many theologians, the need which His disciples would have of 
such a prayer. No poor man will hesitate about the sense which is to be given to 
this petition. The word emovotoS is unknown either in profane or sacred Greek. It 
appears, says Origen, to have been invented by the evangelists. It may be taken as 
derived from ettelul, to be imminent, whence the participle i] eTciovoa {^jxipa), tlie coming 
day (Prov. 27 : 1 ; Acts 7 : 26, et al.). We must then translate : " Give us day by 
day next day's bread." This was certainly the meaning given to the petition by the 
Gospel of the Hebrews, where this was rendered, according to Jerome, by ")HD CH? 
to-morrow's bread. Founding on the same grammatical meaning of eniovaos, Athan- 
asius explains it : " The bread of the world to come." But those two meanings, and 
especially the second, are pure refinements. The first is not in keeping with Matt. 
6 : 34 : " Take no thought for the morrow ; for the morrow shall take thought for 
the things of itself." Comp. Ex. 16 : 19, et seq. It is therefore better to regard 
£tuovoioq as a compound of the substantive ovola, essence, existence, goods. No doubt 
km ordinarily loses its i when it is compounded with a word beginning with a vowel. 
But there are numerous exceptions to the rule. Thus kiueitcjjS, eniovpoz (Homer), 
ETZLopKElv, emerys (Polybius). And in the case before us, there is a reason for the 
irregularity in the tacit contrast which exists between the word and the analogous 
compound KepiovcioS, superfluous. " Give us day by day bread sufficient for our 
existence, not what is superfluous." The expression, thus understood, exactly cor- 
responds to that of Proverbs (30 : 8), *>pn DD7. food convenient for me, literally, the 
bread of my allowance, in which the term pj~\, slatutum, is tacitly opposed to the 
superfluity, irepiovowv, which is secretly desired by the human heart ; and it is this 
'biblical expression of which Jesus probably made use in Aramaic, and which should 
serve to explain that of our passage. It has been inferred, from the remarkable fact 
that the two evangelists employ one and the same Greek expression, otherwise alto- 
gether unknown, that one of the evangelists was dependent on the other, or that both 
were dependent on a common Greek document. But the very important differences 
which we observe in Luke and Matthew, between the two editions of the Lord's 
Prayer, contain one of the most decisive refutations of the two hypotheses. What 



COMMENTAEY ON ST. LUKE. 315 

writer should have taken the liberty wilfully and arbitrarily to introduce such modi- 
fications into the text of a formulary* beginning with the words : " When ye pray, 
say ... ." ? The differences here, still more than anywhere else, must be invol- 
untary. It must therefore be admitted that this Greek term common to both was 
chosen to translate the Aramaic expression, at the time when the primitive oral tradi- 
tion was reproduced in Greek for the numerous Jews speaking that language who 
dwelt in Jerusalem and Palestine (xlcts 6 : 1, et seq. This translation, once fixed in 
the oral tradition, passed thence into our Gospels. 

Instead of day by day, Matthew says arj/iepov, this day. Luke's expression, from its 
very generality, does not answer so well to the character of real and present supplica- 
tion. Matthew's form is therefore to be preferred. Besides, Luke employs the pres- 
ent Sitiov, which, in connection with the expression day by day, must designate the 
permanent act : "Give us constantly each day's bread." The aor. dds, in Matthew, 
in connection with the word this day, designates the one single and momentary act, 
which is preferable. What a reduction of human requirements to their minimum, 
in the two respects of quality (bread) and of quantity (sufficient for each day) ! 

Ver. 4. The deepest feeling of man, after that of his dependence for his very ex- 
istence, is that of his guiltiness ; and the first condition to enable him to act in the 
way which is indicated by the first petition, is his being relieved of this burden by 
pardon. For it is on pardon that the union of the soul with God rests. Instead of 
the word sins, Matthew in the first clause uses debts, Every neglect of duty to God 
really constitutes a debt requiring to be discharged by a penalty. In the second prop- 
osition Luke says : For we ourselves also (avTol) ; Matthew : as ice also. . . . The 
idea of an imprecation on ourselves, in the event of our refusing pardon to him who 
has offended us, might perhaps be found in the form of Matthew, but not in that of 
Luke. The latter does not even include the notion of a condition ; it simply ex- 
presses a motive derived from the manner in which we ourselves act in our humble 
sphere. This motive must undoubtedly be understood in the same sense as that of 
ver. 13 : "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your chil- 
dren." " All evil as we are, we yet ourselves use the right of grace which belongs to 
us, by remitting debts to those who are our debtors ; how much more wilt not Thou, 
Father, who art goodness itself, use Thy right toward us !" And this is probably 
also the sense in which we should understand the as also of Matthew. The only 
difference is, that what Luke alleges as a motive (for also), Matthew states as a point 
of comparison (as also). 

Luke's very absolute expression, We forgive every one that is indebted to us, sup- 
r poses the believer to be now living in that sphere of charity which Jesus came to 
create on the earth, and the principle of which was laid down in the Sermon on the 
Mount. The term used by Jesus might be applied solely to material debts : " Forgive 
us our sins, for we also in our earthly relations relax our rights toward out indigent 
debtors." So we might explain Luke's use of the word sins in the first clause, and 
of the term 6<pei?„ovTi, debtor, in the second. This delicate shade would be lost in Mat-" 
thew's form. It is possible, however, that by the words, every one that is indebted to 
us, in Luke, we are to understand not only debtors strictly so called, but every one 

* Dr. Alford relies upon the variations as proof that this was not a " set form 
developed for liturgical uses" by our Lord. This is all the more weighty a confirm- 
ation of our author's view, as Dr. Alford might be naturally willing to fall in with 
such a view as Wordsworth's.— J. H. 



316 COMMESTTAKY OK ST. LUKE. 

who has offended us. The navri is explained perhaps more easily in this wide sense 
of btyei'AovTi. This petition, which supposes the Christian always penetrated to the 
last {day by day, ver. 3) by the conviction of his sins, has brought down on the 
Lord's Prayer the dislike of the Plymouth brethren, who regard it as a prayer pro- 
vided rather for a Jewish than a Christian state. But comp. 1 John 1 : 9, which cer- 
tainly applies to believers : " If 'we confess . . ." The absence of all allusion to 
the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the pardon of sins is a very striking proof of the en- 
tire authenticity of this formula, both in Luke and Matthew. If Luke in particular 
had put into it anything of his own, even the least, would not some expression bor- 
rowed from the theology of the Epistle to the Romans have inevitably slipped from 
his pen ? 

With the feeling of his past trespasses there succeeds in the mind of the Christian 
that of his weakness, and the fear of offending in the future. He therefore passes 
naturally from sins to be forgiven to sin to be avoided. For he thoroughly appre- 
hends that sanctification is the superstructure to be raised on the foundation of par- 
don. The word tempi takes two meanings in Scripture — to put a free bein'g in the 
position of deciding for himself between good and evil, obedience and rebellion ; it is 
in this sense that God tempts : " God did tempt Abraham" (Gen. 22 : 1) ; or, to im- 
pel inwardly to evil, to make sin appear in a light so seducing that the frail and de- 
ceived being ends by yielding to it ; thus it is that Satan tempts, and that, according 
to Jas. 1 : 13, God cannot tempt. What renders it difficult to uoderstand this last peti- 
tion is, that neither of the two senses of the word tempt appears suitable here. If we 
adopt the good sense, how are we to ask God to spare us experiences which may be 
necessary for the development of our moral being, and for the manifestation of His 
glorious power in us (Jas. 1:3)? If we accept the bad sense, is it not to calumniate 
God, to ask Him not to do toward us an act decidedly wicked, diabolical in itself ? 
The solution of this problem depends on our settling the question who is the author of 
the temptations anticipated. Now the second part of the prayer in Matthew, But 
deliver us from the evil, leaves no doubt on this point. The author of the temptations 
to which this petition relates is not God, but Satan. The phrase fivccu ano, rescue 
from, is a military term, denoting the deliverance of a prisoner who had fallen into 
the hands of an enemy. The enemy is the evil one, who lays his snares in the way of 
the faithful. These, conscious of the danger which they run, as well as of their ig- 
norance and weakness, pray God to preserve them from the snares of the adversary . 
The word eloQepeiv has been rendered, to expose to, or, to abandon to ; but these trans- 
lations do not convey the force of the Greek term, to impel into, to deliver over to. God 
certainly does not impel to evil ; but it is enough for Him to withdraw His hand that 
we may find ourselves given over to the power of the enemy. It is the napadiddvai, 
giving up, of which Paul speaks (Rom. 1 ; 24, 26-28), and by which is manifested His 
wrath against the Gentiles. Thus He punishes sin, that of pride in particular, by the 
most severe of chastisements, even sin itself. All that God needs thereto is not to act, 
no more to guard us ; and man, given over to himself, falls into the power of the 
enemy (2 Sam. 24 : 1, comp. with 1 Chron. 21 : 1). Such is the profound conviction 
of the believer ; hence his prayer, " Let me do nothing this day which would force 
Thee for a single moment to withdraw Thy* hand, and to give me over to one of the 
snares which the evil one will plant in my way. Keep me in the sphere where Thy 
holy will reigns, and where the evil one has no access." * The second clause, but 

* This is what a pious man used to express in the following terms, in which he 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 317 

deliver us . . . is in Luke, an interpolation derived from Matthew. Without this 
termination the prayer is not really closed as it ought to be. Here again, therefore, 
Matthew, is more complete than Luke. The doxology with which we close the Lord's 
Prayer, is not found in any ms. of Luke, and is wanting in the oldest copies of Mat- 
thew. It is an appendix due to the liturgical use of this formulary, and which has 
been added in the text of the first Gospel, the most commonly used in public reading. 

The Lord's Prayer, especially in the form given by Matthew, presents to us a 
complete whole, composed of two ascending and to some extent parallel series. We 
think that we have established— 1st. That it is Luke who has preserved to us 
most faithfully the situation in which this model prayer was taught, but that it 
is Matthew who has preserved the terms of it most fully and exactly. There is no 
contradiction, whatever M. Gess may think, between those two results. 2d. That the 
two digests can neither be derived the one from the other, nor both of them from a 
common document. Bleek himself is forced here to admit a separate source for 
each evangelist. How, indeed, with such a document, is it possible to imagine the 
capricious omissions in which Luke must have indulged, or the arbitrary additions 
which ^Matthew must have allowed himself ? Holtzmann thinks that Matthew ampli- 
fied the formulary of the Logia reproduced by Luke, with the view of raising the 
number of petitions to the (sacred) number of seven. But (a) the division into seven 
petitions is a fiction ; it corresponds neither with the evident symmetry of the two 
parts of the prayer, each composed of three petitions, nor with the true meaning of 
the last petition, which, contrary to all reason, would require to be divided into two. 
(b) The parts peculiar to Matthew have perfect internal probability. It has been con- 
cluded from those differences that this formulary was not yet in use in the worship of 
the primitive Church. If this argument were valid, it would apply also to the for- 
mula instituting the holy Supper, which is untenable. The formula of the Lord's 
Prayer was preserved at first, like all the rest of the Gospel history, by means of oral 
tradition ; it thus remained exposed to secondary modifications, and these passed 
quite simply into the first written digests, from which our synoptical writers have 
drawn. 

2d. Vers. 5-13. Hie Efficacy of Prayer. — After having declared to His own the 
essential objects^ to be prayed for, Jesus encourages them thus to pray by assuring 
them of the efficacy of the act. He proves this (1) by an example, that of the indis- 
creet friend (vers. 5-8) ; (2) by common experience (vers. 9 and 10) ; (3) by the fa- 
therly goodness of God (vers. 11-13). 

Vers. 5-8.* This parable is peculiar to Luke. Holtzmann says : " Taken from A." 
But why in that case has Matthew omitted it, he who reproduces from A both the 
preceding and following verses (7 : 7-11) ? The form of expression is broken after 
ver. 7. It is as if the importuned friend were reflecting what he should do. His friend- 
ship hesitates. But a circumstance decides him : the perseverance, carried even to 
shamelessness (avaideia), of his friend who does not desist from crying and knocking. 
The construction of ver. 7 does not harmonize with that with which the parable had 
opened (ver. 5). There were two ways of expressing the thought : either to say, 
" Which of you shall have a friend, and shall say to him . . . and [if] the latter 
shall answer . . . [will not persist until] . . . ;" or to say, " If one of you 

paraphrased this petition : " If the occasion of sinning presents itself, grant that the 
desire may not be found in me : if the desire is there, grant that the occasion ma3 r 
not present itself." 

* Ver. 5. A. D. K. M. P. R. n. several Mnn. ItP leri( i ue : epei instead of etinj. Ver. 
6. 14 Mjj. 100 Mnn. Syr sch . omit /iov, which is read by the T. R. with ». A. B. L. X. 
most of the Mnn. Syr cur . It, Ver. 8. The Mss, are divided between qoqv (Alex.) 
and oaov (Byz.), 



318 COMMENTAKY ON ST. LUKE. 

hath a friend, and sayeth to him . . . and he answer him . . . [nevertheless] 
I say unto you . . . " Jesus begins with the first form, which takes each hearer 
more directly aside, and continues (ver. . 7) with the second, which better .suits so 
lengthened a statement. The reading einy may be explained by the sliry which follows 
ver. 7, as the reading kpel by the Futures which precede. The first has more authori- 
ties in its favor. The figure of the three loaves should not be interpreted allegorically ; 
the meaning of it should follow from the picture taken as a whole. One of the 
loaves is for the traveller ; the second for the host, who must seat himself at table 
with him ; the third will be their reserve. The idea of full sufficiency (pcov xpy&<) is 
the real application to be made of this detail. 

Vers. 9 and 10.* " And 1 say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, 
and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 10. For every one that 
asketh receiveth ; and he that seeketh findeth ; and to him that knocketh it shall be 
opendd." Ver. 9 formally expresses the application of the preceding example ; all 
the figures appear to be borrowed from that example. That is evident in the case of 
knocking. The word ask probably alludes to the cries of the friend in distress, and 
the word seek to his efforts to find the door in the night, or in endeavoring to open it. 
The gradation of those figures includes the idea of increasing energy in the face of 
multiplying obstacles. A precept this which Jesus had learned by His personal ex- 
perience (3 : 21, 22). 

Ver. 10 confirms the exhortation of ver. 9 by daily experience. The future, it 
shall be opened, which contrasts with the two presents, receiveth, jindeth, is used be- 
cause in this case it is not the same individual who performs the two successive acts, 
as in the former two. The opening of the door depends -on the will of another per- 
son. How can we help admiring here the explanation afforded by Luke, who, by 
the connection which he establishes between this precept and the foregoing example,, 
so happily accounts for the choice of the figures used by our Lord, and brings into 
view their entire appropriateness ? In Matthew, on the contrary, this saying is found 
placed in the midst of a series of precepts, at the end of the Sermon ^>n the Mount, 
detached from the parable which explains its figures ; it produces the effect of a 
petal torn from its stalk, and lying on the spot where the wind has let it fall. "Who 
could hesitate between the two narratives ? 

Vers. 11-13. f " If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he 
give him a stone ? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent ? 12. Or 
if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion ? 13. If ye then, being evil, know 
how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly 
Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him !" Undoubtedly it sometimes 
happens in human relations, that the maxim of ver. 10 does not hold good. But in a 
paternal and filial relationship, such as that which was set before us by the model 
given at the . beginning, success is certain. It is a Father to whom the believer 

* Ver. 9. The mss. are divided here, as well as at ver. 10. between avoixdycerai 
and avoiyTjOETciL (the second probably taken from Matthew) 

f Ver. 11. ft. D. L. X. 6 Mnn. Vg. Or., uS instead of nva. 11 Mjj. 50 Mnn. It. 
Vg. read e% before vfiav. Or. Epiph. omit o before vcos. ft. L. 1 Mn. It ali< *. Vg. omit 
o viog. All the Mjj. read, before kcli, ei instead of v, which the T. E. reads, with 
some Mnn. only. Ver. 12. ft. B. L. some Mnn., r/ nat instead of v nat eav. Ver. 13. 
ft. D. K. M. X. II. several Mnn., ovreg instead of virapxovTeS. C. U. several Mnn. 
Vss. add vfiuv after Trarrjp. ft. L. X. Syr. ItP leri< iu^ omit o before e£ ovpavov. L. 8 
Mnn. Vg., irvsv/ta ayaQoi> instead of irvevjxa aycov. 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 319 

prays ; and when praying to Him in conformity with the model prescribed, he is 
sure to ask nothing except those things which such a Father cannot refuse to His 
child, and instead of which that Father would not give him other things, either hurt- 
ful or even less precious. The end of the piece thus brings us back to the starting- 
point : the title Father given to God, and the filial character of him who prays the 
Lord's Prayer. Ac, then, relates to the a fortiori, in the certainty which we have 
just expressed. The reading of some Alex., ri% . . . 6 vlds or vloq, " What son 
shall ask of his father," would appeal to the feeling of sonship among the hearers ; 
the reading rlva ... is clearly to be preferred to it, " What father of whom his 
son shall ask," by which Jesus appeals to the heart of fathers in the assembly. The 
three articles of food enumerated by Jesus appear at first sight to be chosen at ran- 
dom. But, as M. Bovet * remarks, loaves, hard eggs, and fried fishes are precisely 
the ordinary elements of a traveller's fare in the East. Matthew omits the third ; 
Luke has certainly not added it at his own hand. The correspondence between 
bread and stone, fish and serpent, egg and scorpion, appears at a glance. In the 
teaching of Jesus all is picturesque, full of appropriateness, exquisite even to the 
minutest details. 'EmStdovat, to transfer from hand to hand. This word, which is 
not repeated in ver. 13, includes this thought : " What Father will have the courage 
to put into the hand . . . ?" 

The conclusion, ver. 13, is drawn by a new argument a fortiori ; and the reason- 
ing is still further strengthened by the words, ye being evil. The reading imdpxovTeS, 
" finding yourselves evil,." seems more in harmony with the context than owes, being 
(which is taken from Matthew, where the readings do not vary). • 'Yir&pxeiv denotes 
the actual state as the starting-point for the supposed activity. Bengel justly ob- 
serves : Ulustre testimonium de peccato originali. The reading of the Alex., which 
omits 6 before c£ ovpavov, would admit of the translation, will give from heaven. But 
there is no reason in the context which could have led Luke to put this construction 
so prominently. From heaven thus depends on the word Father, and the untranslat- 
able Greek form can only be explained by introducing the verbal notion of giving 
between the substantive and its government : " The Father who giveth from 
heaven." Instead of the Holy Spirit, Matthew says, good things ; and De Wette ac- 
cuses Luke of having corrected him in* a spiritualizing sense. He would thus have 
done here exactly the opposite of that which has been imputed to him in respect to 
6 : 20 ! Have we not then a complete proof that Luke took this whole piece from a 
source peculiar to himself ? As to the intrinsic value of the two expressions, that of 
Matthew is simple and less didactic ; that of Luke harmonizes better perhaps with 
the elevated sphere of the Lord's Prayer, which is the starting-point of the piece. 
The use of the simple 66gel (instead of emduoei, ver, 12) arises from the fact that the 
idea does not recur of giving from hand to hand. 

We regard this piece as one of those in which the originality and excellence of 
Luke's sources appear in their full light, although we consider the comparison of 
Matthew indispensable to restore the words of our Lord in their entirety. 

7. Ihe Blasphemy of the Pharisees : 11 : 14-36.— We have already observed (see on 
6 : 11) how remarkably coincident in time are the accusations called forth in Galilee 
by the healings on the Sabbath, and those which are raised about the same period at 
Jerusalem by the healing of the impotent man (John 5). There is a similar corre- 

* See the charming passage, " Voyage en Terre-Sainte," p. 362, 6th ed. 



320 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

spondence between the yet graver accusation of complicity with Beelzebub, raised 
against Jesus on the occasion of His healing demoniacs, and the charge brought 
against Him at Jerusalem at the feasts of Tabernacles and of the Dedication : 
" Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil !" (John 8 : 48) ; " He hath a devil, and is 
mad !" (10 : 20). Matthew (chap. 12) and Mark (chap. 3) place this accusation and 
the answer of Jesus much earlier, in the first part of the Galilean ministry. The ac- 
cusation may and must have often been repeated. The comparison of John would 
tell in favor of Luke's narrative. Two sayings which proceeded from the crowd 
give rise to the following discourse : the accusation of complicity with Beelzebub 
(ver. 15), and the demand for a sign from heaven (ver. 16). It might seem at first 
sight that these are two sayings simply placed in juxtaposition ; but it is not so. 
The second is intended to offer Jesus the means of clearing Himself of the terrible 
charge involved in the first : " Work a miracle in the heavens, that sphere which is 
exclusively divine, and we shall then acknowledge that it is God who acts through 
thee, and not Satan." This demand in appearance proceeds from a disposition 
favorable to Jesus ; but as those who address Him reckon on his powerlessness to 
meet the demand, the result of the test, in their view, will be a condemnation with- 
out appeal. Those last are therefore in reality the worst intentioned, and it is in that 
light that Luke's text represents them. Matthew isolates the two questions, and 
simply puts in juxtaposition the two discourses which reply to them (12 : 22 et seq., 
30 et seq.) ; thus the significant connection which we have just indicated disappears. 
It is difficult to understand how Holtzmann and other moderns can see nothing in 
this relation established by Luke, but a specimen of his ' ' [arbitrary] manner of join- 
ing together pieces which were detached in the Logia (A). ' ' 

This piece includes : 1st. A statement of the facts which gave rise to the two fol- 
lowing discourses (vers. 14-16) ; 2d. The first discourse in reply to the accusation of 
ver. 15 (vers. 17-26) ; 3d. An episode showing the deep impression produced on the 
people by this discourse (vers. 27 and 28) ; 4th. The second discourse in reply to the 
challenge thrown out to Jesus, ver. 16 (vers. 29-36). 

1st. Vers. 14-16.* 7 Uv ek^uXKuv, He was occupied in casting out. The word /cw^oS 
dull, may mean deaf or dumb ; according to the end of the verse, it here denotes 
dumbness. On the expression dumb devil, 'see p. 276. Bleek justly concludes, 
from this term, that the dumbness was of a psychical, not an organic nature. The 
construction syevero . . . k'kalr\azv betrays an Aramaic source. The accusation, 
ver. 15, is twice mentioned by Matthew — 9 : 32, on the occasion of a deaf man pos- 
sessed, but without Jesus replying to it ; then 12 : 22, which is the parallel passage to 
ours ; here the possessed man is dumb and blind. Should not those two miracles be 
regarded as only one and the same fact, the account of which was taken first (Matt. 9) 
from the Logia, second (Matt. 12) from the proto-Mark, as Holtzmann appears to 
think, therein following his system to its natural consequences ? But in that case we 
should have the result, that the Logia, the collection of discourses, contained the fact 
without the discourse, and that the proto-Mark, the strictly historical writing, con- 
tained the discourse without the fact — a strange anomaly, it must be confessed ! In 
Mark 3 this accusation is connected with the step of the brethren of Jesus who come 

* Ver. 14. Kat. avro -r\v is wanting in &. B. L. 7 Mnn. Syr cur . A. C. L. X. 
6 Mnn., ek^tjBevtoS instead of e^eWovrog. D. It ali i. present this verse under a some- 
what different form. Ver. 15. A. D. K. M. X. n. 40 Mnn. read here a long appen- 
dix taken from Mark .3 : 23. 



COMMENTARY OH ST. LUKE. 321 

to lay hold of Him, because they have heard say that He is beside Himself, that He is 
mad (3 : 21, on s&ottj). This expression is nearly synonymous with that of possessed 
(John 10 : 20). According to this accusation, it was thus as one Himself possessed 
by the prince of the devils that Jesus had the power of expelling inferior devils. 
From this point of view, the h, through, before the name Beelzebub, has a more for- 
cible sense than appears at the first glance. It signifies not only by the authority of, 
but by Beelzebub himself dwelling personally in Jesus. This name given to Satan 
appears in all the documents of Luke, and in almost all those of Matthew, with the 
termination bul ; and this is certainly the true reading. It is probable, however, that 
the name is derived from the Heb. Baal-Zebub, God of Flies, a divinity who, accord- 
ing to 2 Kings 1 et seq., was worshipped at Ekron, a city of the Philistines, and who 
may be compared with the ZevS 'Atto/uvIos of the Greeks. The invocation of this god 
was doubtless intended to preserve the country from the scourge of flies. In con- 
tempt, the Jews applied this name to Satan, while modifying its last syllable so as to 
make it signify God of Dung (Baal-Zebul). Such is the explanation given by Light- 
foot, Wetstein, Bleek, etc. Those who raise this accusation are, in Luke, some of 
the numerous persons present ; in Matthew (9 : 34, 12 : 24), the Pharisees ; in Mark 
(3 : 22), scribes which came down from Jerusalem. This last indication by Mark would 
harmonize with the synchronism which we have established in regard to this accusa- 
tion between Luke and John. 

The demand for a sign from heaven (ver. 16) is mentioned twice in Matt. , 12 : 38 
and 16 : 1. It is not impossible that it may have been repeated again and again 
(comp. John 6 : 30). It corresponded with the ruling tendency of the Israelitish mind, 
the seeking for miracles, the arjuela cutsIv (1 Cor. 1 : 22). We have already explained 
its bearing in the present case. In John it signifies more particularly, " Show thyself 
superior to Moses." In those different forms it was ever the repetition of the third 
temptation (neipdfyvTeS, tempting Him). How, indeed, could Jesus avoid being 
tempted to accept this challenge, and so to confound by an act of signal power the 
treacherous accusation which He found raised against Him ! 

2d. The First Discourse : vers. 17-26.— It is divided into two parts : Jesus refutes 
this blasphemous explanation of His cures (vers. 17-19) ; He gives their true explana- 
tion (vers. 20-26). 

Vers. 17-19. ' ' But He, knowing their thoughts, said unto them : Every kingdom 
divided against itself is brought to desolation ; and one house falls upon another. 
18. If Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand ? because 
ye say that I cast out devils through Beelzebub. 19. And if I by Beelzebub cast out 
devils, by whom do your sons cast them out ? therefore shall they be your judges." 
In vers. 17 and 18 Jesus appeals to the common-sense of His hearers ; it is far from 
natural to suppose that the devil would fight against himself. It is true, it might be 
rejoined that Satan drove out his underlings, the better to accredit Him as his Mes- 
siah. Jesus does not seem to have referred to this objection. In auy case, the 
sequel would answer it ; the devil can remove the diabolical spirit, but not replace 
it by the Holy Spirit. Aiavo^juara, their thoughts, denotes the wicked source concealed 
behind such words (vers. 15 and 16). The words, "And one house falls upon 
another," appear to be in Luke the development of the eprjjuovrat, is brought to desola- 
tion : the ruin of families, as a consequence of civil discord. In Matthew and Mark 
they evidently include a new example, parallel to the preceding one. This sense is 
also admissible in Luke, if we make the object enl oUov depend, not on izinret, but 



322 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

on SiafiepioQe'tg . . .: " And likewise a house divided against a house falls." The 
el fe mi, ver. 18, here signifies, and entirely so if. . . . In the appendix, because 
ye say, there is revealed a deep feeling of indignation. Tbis emphatic form recalls 
that of Mark (3 : 30) : " Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit." The two 
analogous terms of expression had become fixed in the tradition (comp. 5 : 24 and 
parall. ; see also on 13 : 18) ; but their form is sufficiently different to prove that the 
one evangelist did not copy from the other. 

By this first reply Jesus has simply enlisted common-sense on His side. He now 
thrusts deeper the keen edge of His logic, ver. 19. If the accusation raised against 
Him is well-founded, His adversaries must impute to many of the sons of Israel the 
same compact with Satan. We know from the N". T. and Josephus, that there were 
at that time numerous Jewish exorcists who made a business of driving out devils 
for money (Acts 19 : 13 : " Certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists . . ." 
Comp. Josephus, Antiq. 8 : 2. 5).* The Talmud also speaks of those exorcists, who 
took David, healing Saul by his songs, as their patron, and Solomon as the inventor 
of their incantations : " They take roots, fumigate the patient, administer to him a 
decoction, and the spirit vanishes" (Tauch. f. 70, 1). Such are the persons whom 
Jesus designated by the expression, your sons. Several Fathers have thought that 
He meant His own apostles, who also wrought like cures ; but the argument would 
have had no value with Jews, for they would not have hesitated to apply to the cures 
wrought by the disciples the explanation with which they had just stigmatized 
those of the Master. De "Wette, Meyer, and Neander give to the word sons the mean- 
ing which it has in the expression sons of the prophets, that of disciples. But is it 
proved that those exorcists studied in the Rabbinical schools ? Is it not simpler to 
explain the term your sons in this sense : ** You own countrymen — your flesh and 
blood — whom you do not think of repudiating, but from whom, on the contrary, you 
take glory when they perform works of power similar to mine ; they do not work 
signs in the heavens, and yet you do not suspect their cures. They shall confound 
you therefore before the divine tribunal, by convicting you of having applied to me 
a judgment which you should with much stronger reason have applied to them.*' 
In reality, what a contrast was there between the free and open strife which Jesus 
maintained with the malignant spirits whom He expelled, and the suspicious manipu- 
lations in which those exorcists indulged ! between the entire physical and moral 
restoration which His word brought to the sick who were healed by Him, and the 

* " I have seen one of my countrymen, named Eleazar, who in the presence of 
Vespasian and his sous, captains and soldiers, delivered persons possessed with 
devils. The manner of his cure was this : Bringing close to the nostrils of the pos- 
sessed man his ring, under the bezel of which there was inclosed one of the roots pre- 
scribed by Solomon, be made him smell it, and thus gradually he drew out the 
demon through the nostrils. The man then fell on the ground, and the exorcist com- 
manded the demon to return into him no more, uttering all the while the name of 
Solomon, and reciting the incantations which he composed. Wishing to convince 
the bystanders of the power which he exercised, and to demonstrate it to them, 
Eleazar placed a little way off a cup or basin full of water, and commanded the 
demon to overturn it as he went out of the man, and thereby to furnish proof to the 
spectators that he had really quitted him. That having taken place, the knowl- 
edge and wisdom of Solomon were evident to all." Comp. M Bell. Jud.," vii. 6. 3. 
where the magical root mentioned, a sort of rue (wrjyavov), is called Baara, from the 
name of the valley where it was gathered with infinite trouble, near the fortress of 
Machaerus. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 323 

half cures, generally followed by relapses, which they wrought ! To ascribe the 
imperfect cures to God, and to refer the perfect cures to the devil — what logic ! 

Vers. 20-26. After having by this new argumentum ad hominem refuted the sup- 
position of His adversaries, Jesus gives the true explanation of His cures by contrast- 
ing the picture of one of those expulsions which He works (vers. 20-22) with that of 
a cure performed by the exorcists (vers. 23-26). 

Vers. 20-22. ' ' But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the king- 
dom of God is come upon you. 21. "When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, 
his goods are in peace. 22. But when a stronger than he shall come upon him and 
overcome him, he taketh from him all his armor wherein he trusted, and divideth 
his spoils." Ver. 20 draws the conclusion {6e, now ; apa, then) from the preceding 
arguments, and forms the transition to the two following scenes. In this declaration 
there is betrayed intense indignation : " Let them take heed ! The kingdom of God, 
for which they are waiting, is already there without their suspecting it ; and it is upon 
it that their blasphemies fall. They imagine that it will come with noise aud tumult ; 
and it has come more quickly than they thought, and far otherwise it has readied 
them (e<j>6aoev). The construction ktf v/i&s, upon you, has a threatening sense. Since 
they set themselves in array against it, it is an enemy which has surprised them, and 
which will crush them. The term finger of God is admirably in keeping with the 
context : the arm is the natural seat and emblem of strength ; and the finger, the 
smallest part of the arm, is the symbol of the ease with which this power acts. Jesus 
means, "As forme, I have only to lift my finger to make the devils leave their 
prey." These victories, so easily won, prove that henceforth Satan has found his 
, conqueror, and that now God begins really to reign. This word, full of majesty, 
unveils to His adversaries the grandeur of the work which is going forward, and 
what tragic results are involved in the hostile attitude which they are taking toward 
it. Instead of by the finger of God, Matthew says by the Spirit of God ; and Weiz- 
sacker, always in favor of the hypothesis of a common document, supposes that 
Luke has designedly replaced it by another, because it seemed to put Jesus in 
dependence on the Holy Spirit. What may a man not prove with such criticism ? 
Is it not simpler, with Bleek, to regard the figurative term of Luke as the original 
form in the saying of Jesus, which has been replaced by the abstract but radically 
equivalent expression of Matthew? Mark omits the two verses 19 and 20. Why 
would he have done so, if he had had before his eyes the same document as the 
others ? 

Vers. 21 and 22 serve to illustrate the thought of ver. 20 : the citadel of Satan is 
plundered ; the fact proves that Satan is vanquished, and that the kingdom of God is 
come. A strong and well-armed warrior watches at the gate of his fortress. So ' 
long as he is in this position (orav), all is tranquil (ev eiprjvrj) in his fastness ; his cap- 
tives remain chained, and his booty (ctcvla) is secure. The warrior is Satan (the art. 
6 alludes to a single and definite personality) ; his castle is the world, which up till 
now has been his confirmed property. His armor consists of those powerful means 
of influence which he wields. His booty is, first of all, according to the context, 
those possessed ones, the palpable monuments of his sway over humanity ; and in a 
wider sense, that humanity itself, which with mirth or groans bears the chains of 
sin. But a warrior superior in strength has appeared on the world's stage ; and 
from that moment all is changed. 'Eirdv, from the time that, denotes the abrupt and 
decisive character of this succession to power, in opposition to qtqv } as long as, which. 



324 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

suited the period of security. This stronger man is Jesus (the art. 6 also alludes to 
His definite personality). He alone can really plunder the citadel of the prince of 
this world. Why ? Because He alone began by conquering him in single combat. 
This victory in a personal engagement was the preliminary condition of His taking 
possession of the earth. It cannot be doubted that, as Keim and Weizsacker ac- 
knowledge, Jesus is here thinking of the scene of His temptation. That spiritual tri- 
umph is the foundation laid for the establishment of the kingdom of God on the 
earth, and for the destruction of that of Satan. As soon as a man can tell the prince 
of this world to his face, " Thou hast nothing in me" (John 14 : 30), the stronger 
man, the vanquisher of the strong man, is come ; and the plundering of his house be- 
gins. This plundering consists, first of all, of the healings of the possessed wrought by 
Jesus. Thus is explained the ease with which He performs those acts by which He 
rescues those unhappy ones from malignant powers, and restores them to God, to 
themselves, and to human society. All the figures of this scene are evidently bor- 
rowed from Isa. 49 : 24, 25, where Jehovah Himself fills the part of liberator, which 
Jesus here ascribes to Himself. 

Vers. 23-26.* " He that is not with me is against me ; and he that gathereth not 
with me scattereth. 24. "When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh 
through dry places, seeking rest ; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my 
house whence I came out. 25. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and gar- 
nished. 26. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than 
himself ; and they enter in, and dwell there : and the last state of that man is worse 
than the first." The relation between ver. 23 and the verses which precede and fol- 
low has been thought so obscure by De Wette and Bleek that they give up the at- 
tempt to explain it. In itself the figure is clear. It is that of a troop which has 
been dispersed by a victorious enemy, and which its captain seeks to rally, after hav- 
ing put the enemy to flight ; but false allies hinder rather than promote the rallying. 
Is it so difficult to understand the connection of this figure with the context ? The 
dispersed army denotes humanity, which Satan has conquered ; the chief who rallies 
it is Jesus ; the seeming allies, who have the appearance of fighting for the same 
cause as He does, but who in reality scatter abroad with Satan, are the exorcists. 
Not having conquered for themselves the chief of the kingdom of darkness, it is only 
in appearance that they can drive out his underlings ; in reality, they serve no end by 
those alleged exploits, except to strengthen the previous state of things, and to keep 
up the reign of the ancient master of the world. Such is the object which the fol- 
lowing illustration goes to prove. By the thrice-repeated kfiov, me, of ver. 23, there 
is brought into relief the decisive importance of the part which Jesus plays in the 
history of humanity ; He is the impersonation of the kingdom of God ; His appear- 
ance is the advent of a new power. The words otcopTrifriv, to disperse, and owdyeiv, 
to gather together, are found united in the same sense as here, John 10 : 13-16. 

The two following verses serve to illustrate the saying of ver. 23, as vers. 21 and 
22 illustrated the declaration of ver. 20. They are a sort of ^apologue poetically de- 
scribing a cure wrought by the means which the exorcists employ, and the end of 
which is to show, that to combat Satan apart from Christ, his sole conqueror, is to 
work for him and against God ; comp. the opposite case, 9 : 49, 50. The exorcist 

* Ver. 24. & c . B. L. X. Z. some Mnn. It*"*, read tots after evpicnov. The mss. 
are divided between evptaKov and evpiaituv, and at ver. 25 between elBov and eWuv. 
Ver. 25. 5* c . B. C. L. R. I\ 12 Mnn. It*"*, read axoka^ovra after evpicKti (taken from 
Matthew). Ver. 26. The mss. are divided between eioeldovra and elBovra. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 325 

has plied his art ; the impure spirit has let go his prey, quitted his dwelling, which 
for the time has become intolerable to him. But two things are wanting to the cure 
to make it real and durable. First of all, the enemy has not been conquered, 
bound ; he has onl} r been expelled, and he is free to take his course of the world, 
perhaps to return. Jesus, on the other hand, sent the malignant spirits to their 
prison, the abyss whence they could no longer come forth till the judgment (8 : 31, 
4 : 34). Then the house vacated is not occupied by a new tenant, who can bar the 
entrance of it against the old one. Jesus, on the contrary, does not content Himself 
■with expelling the demon ; He brings back the soul to its God ; He replaces the un- 
clean spirit by the Holy Spirit. As a relapse after a cure of this sort is impossible, 
so is it probable and imminent in the former case. Every line of the picture in 
which Jesus represents this state of things is charged with irony. The spirit driven 
out walks through dry places. This strange expression was probably borrowed from 
the formulas of exorcism. The spirit was relegated to the desert, the presumed 
abode of evil spirits (Tob. 8:3; Baruch 4 : 35). The reference was the same in 
the symbolical sending of the goat into the wilderness for Azazel, the prince of the 
devils. 

But the» malignant spirit, after roaming for a time, begins to regret the loss of his 
old abode ; would it not be well, he asks himself, to return to it ? He is so sure that 
he needs only to will it, that he exclaims with sarcastic gayety : I will return unto my 
house. At bottom he -knows very well that he has not ceased to be the proprietor of 
it ; a proprietor is only dispossessed in so far as he is replaced. First he determines 
to reconnoitre. Having come, he finds that the house is disposable (cxoM^ovra, 
Matt.). He finds what is better still : the exorcist has worked with so much success, 
that the house has recovered a most agreeable air of propriety, order, and comfort 
since his departure. Far, therefore, from being closed against the malignant spirit, 
it is only better prepared to receive him. Jesus means thereby to describe the resto- 
ration of the physical and mental powers conferred by the half cures which He is 
stigmatizing. Anew there is a famous work of destruction to be accomplished — 
Satan cares for no other — but this time it is not to be done by halves. And therefore 
there is need for reinforcement. Besides, it is a festival ; there is need of friends. 
The evil spirit goes off to seek a number of companions sufficient to finish the work 
which had been interrupted. These do not require a second bidding, and the merry 
crew throw themselves into their dwelling. This time, we may be sure, nothing will 
be wanting to the physical, intellectual, and moral destruction of the possessed. 
Such was the state in which Jesus had found the Gergesene demoniac (8 : 29), and 
probably also Mary Magdalene (8 : 2). This explains in those two cases the words 
Legion (8 : 30) and seven devils (8 : 2), which are both symbolical expressions for a des- 
perate state resulting from one or more relapses. Nothing is clearer than this con- 
text, or more striking than this scene, in which it is impossible for us to distinguish 
fully between what belongs to the idea and what to the figure. Thus has Jesus suc- 
ceeded in retorting upon the exorcists, so highly extolled by His adversaries, the 
reproach of being auxiliaries of Satan, which they had dared to cast on Him. Need 
we wonder at the enthusiasm which this discourse excited in the multitude, and at 
the exclamation of the woman, in which this feeling of admiration finds utterance ? 

Sd. Vers. 27, 28.* The Incident.—' 1 And it came to pass, as He spake these things, 

* Ver. 28. The mss. are divided between ixtvowye (T. R) and uevow (Alex.). 
8 Mjj. 15 Mnn. It. omit avrov after QvAaooovTeS. 



326 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto Him, Blessed is 
the womb that bare Thee, and the paps which Thou hast sucked. 28. But He said, 
Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it." Perhaps, like 
Mary Magdalene, this woman had herself experienced the two kinds of healing which 
Jesus had been contrasting. In any case, living in a society where scenes of the kind 
were passing frequently, she had not felt the same difficulty in apprehending the fig- 
ures as we, to whom they are so strange. Jesus in His answer neither denies nor 
affirms the blessedness of her who gave Him birth. All depends on this, if she shall 
take rank in the class of those whom alone He declares to be blessed. The true 
reading appears to be fievovvys, /lievovv. " There is undoubtedly a blessedness ;" ye 
(the restricting particle as always) : " at least for those who . . ." 

Does not this short account bear in itself the seal of its historical reality ? It is 
altogether peculiar to Luke, and suffices to demonstrate the originality of the source 
from which this whole piece was derived. For this incident could not possibly stand 
as a narrative by itself ; it must have formed part of the account of the entire scene. 

The allegorical. tableau, ver. 24 et seq., is set by Matthew in an altogether different 
place, and so as to give it a quite different application (12 : 43 et seq.). The words 
with which it closes, " Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation," prove 
that it is applied in that Gospel to the Jewish people taken collectively! The old 
form of possession was the spirit of idolatry ; that of the present, seven times worse, 
is the Rabbinical pride, the pharisaic formalism and hypocrisy, which have dominion 
over the nation in the midst of its monotheistic zeal. The stroke which will fall 
upon it will be seven times more terrible than that with which it was visited when it 
was led into captivity in Jeremiah's day. This application is certainly grand and 
felicitous. But it forces us entirely to separate this scene, vers. 24-26, as the first 
Gospel does, from the preceding, vers. 21, 22, which in Matthew as well as in Luke 
can only refer to the healing of cases of possession ; and yet those two scenes are in- 
disputably the pendants of one another. Gess understands the application of this 
word in Matthew to the Jewish people in a wholly different sense. The first cure, 
according to him, was the enthusiastic impulse of the people in favor of Jesus in the 
beginning of His Galilean ministry ; the relapse referred to the coldness which had 
followed, and which had obliged Jesus to teach in parables. But nowhere does 
Jesus make so marked an allusion to that crisis, to which probably the conscience of 
the people was not awakened. Would it not be better in this case to apply the first 
cure to the powerful effect produced by John the Baptist ? " Ye were willing for a 
season," says Jesus Himself, ",to rejoice in his light " (John 5 : 35). Anyhow, what 
leads Matthew to convert the second scene into a national apologue, instead of leav- 
ing it with its demonologieal and individual application, is his insertion, immediately 
before, of the saying which relates to blasphemy against the Holy Spirit — a saying 
which in Mark also follows the scene of the combat between the strong man and the 
stronger man. When, after so grave an utterance, Matthew returns to the scene 
(omitted by Mark) of the spirit recovering possession of his abandoned dwelling, he 
must necessarily give it a different bearing from that which it has in Luke. The 
superiority of Luke's account cannot appear doubtful to the reader who has caught 
the admirable connection of this discourse, and the striking meaning of all the fig- 
ures which Jesus uses to compose those two scenes. As to the true position of the 
saying about the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the question will be discussed 
chap. 12. 

Uh. Vers. 29-36. The Second Discourse. — This is the answer of Jesus to the de- 
mand which was addressed to Him to work a miracle proceeding from heaven (ver. 
16). Strauss does not think that Jesus could have reverted to so secondary a ques- 
tion after the extremely grave charge with which He had been assailed. We have 
already pointed out the relation which exists between those two subjects. The mir- 
acle proceeding from heaven was claimed from Jesus, as the only means He had of 



COMME]$TAKY Oltf ST. LUKE. 327 

• 
clearing Himself from the suspicion of complicity with Satan. In the first part of 
His reply, Jesus speaks of the only sign of the kind which shall be granted to the 
nation (vers. 29-32) ; in the second, of the entire sufficiency of this sign in the case of 
every one who has the eye of his soul open to behold it (vers. 33-86). 

Vers. 29-32.* The Sign from Heaven. — " And when the people thronged together, 
He began to say, This is an evil generation : they seek a sign ; and there shall no sign 
be given it, but the sign of Jonas. 30. For as Jonas was a 'sign unto the Ninevites, 
so shall also the Son of man be to this generation. 31. The queen of the south shall 
rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and condemn tbem : for 
she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon ; and, 
behold, a greater than Solomon is here. 32. The men of Nineveh shall rise up in the 
judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it : for they repented at the 
preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. " During the pre- 
vious scene, a crowd, growing more and more numerous, had gathered ; and it is 
before it than Jesus gives the following testimony against the national unbelief. In 
the Tvovrjpd, wicked, there is an allusion to the diabolical spirit which had dictated the 
call for a sign (ireipd^ovreS, ver. 16). The point of comparison between Jonas and 
Jesus, according to Luke, appears at first sight to be only the fact of their preaching, 
while in Matt. 12 : 39, 40 it is evidently the miraculous deliverance of the one and the 
resurrection of the other. M. Colani concludes from this difference that Matthew 
has materialized the comparison which Jesus gave forth in a purely moral sense 
(Luke).f But it must not be forgotten that Jesus says in Luke, as well as in Matthew : 
4 ' The Son of man shall be (carat,) a sign," by which He cannot denote His present 
preaching and appearance, the Fut„ necessarily referring to an event yet to come — 
an event which can be no other than the entirely exceptional miracle of His resurrec- 
tion. They ask of Jesus a sign e% ovpavov, proceeding from heaven, ver. 16. His res- 
urrection, in which no human agency intervenes, and in which divine power appears 
alone, fully satisfies, and only satisfies, this demand. This is the feature which 
Peter asserts in Acts 2 : 24, 32, 3 : 15, etc. : 4 ' God hath raised up Jesus." In John 
2 : 19, Jesus replies to a similar demand by announcing the same event. The thought 
in Luke and Matthew is therefore exactly the same: "It was as one who had mi- 
raculously escaped from death that Jonas presented himself before the Ninevites, sum- 
moning them to anticipate the danger which threatened them ; it is as the risen One 
that I (by my messengers) shall proclaim salvation to the men of this generation." 
Which of the two texts is it which reproduces the answer of our Lord most exactly ? 
But our passage may be parallel with Matt. 16 : 4, where the form is that of Luke. 
As to the words of Matt. 12 : 39, 40, they must be authentic. No one would have 
put into the mouth of Jesus the expression three days and three nights, when Jesus 
had actually remained in the tomb only one day and two nights. 

But how shall this sign, and this preaching which will accompany it, be received ? 
It is to this new thought that vers. 31 and 32 refer. Of the two examples which 
Jesus quotes, Matthew puts that of the Ninevites first, that of the Queen of Sheba 
second. Luke reverses the order. Here again it is easy to perceive the superiority 
of Luke's text. 1. Matthew's order has been determined by the natural tendency to 

* Ver. 29. 5 Mjj. repeat yevea after avrrj, read fy\ru instead of eirifyret, and omit the 
words rov irpo^ro'v (taken from Matthew). Ver. 32. 12 Mjj. 80 Mun. Syr 8Ch , It. read 
Ntveveirai instead of 'Ntvevi. 

f " Jesus Christ et les croyances Messianiques, " etc., p. 111. 



328 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

• 

bring the example of the Ninevites into immediate proximity with what Jesus has been 
saying of Jonas. 2. Luke's order presents an admirable gradation : while the wis- 
dom of Solomon sufficed to attract the Queen of Sheba from such a distance, Israel 
demands that to the infinitely higher wisdom of Jesus there should be added a sign 
from heaven. This is serious enough. But matters will be still worse : while the 
heathen of Nineveh were converted by the voice of Jonas escaped from death, Israel 
at the sight of Jesus raised from the dead, shall hot be converted. Comp. as to the 
Queen of the South, 1 Kings 10 : 1 et seq. Seba seems to have been a part of Arabia- 
Felix, the modern Yemen. 'EyepBT/ceTcu, shall rise up from her tomb on the day of 
the great awakening, at the same time as the Jews (/uerd, with, not against), so that the 
blindness of the latter shall appear in full light, contrasted with the earnestness and 
docility of the heathen queen. The word avSptov, "the men of this generation," 
certainly indicates a contrast with her female sex. Indeed, this term uvSpei, men, 
does not reappear in the following example, where this generation is not compared 
with a woman. Perhaps the choice of the first instance was suggested to Jesus by 
the incident which had just taken place, vers. 27, 28. The word avaaryoovrai, ver. 
32, shall rise up, denotes a more advanced degree of life than eyepdrjoovTcu (shall 
awake). These dead are not rising from their tombs, like the Queen of Sheba ; they 
are already in their place before the tribunal as accusing witnesses. How dramatic 
is everything in the speech of Jesus ! and what variety is there in the smallest details 
of His descriptions ! 

Vers. 33-36.* The Spiritual Eye. — " No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth 
it in a secret place, neither under the bushel, but on the candlestick, that they which 
come in may see the light. 34. The light of the body is the eye : therefore when 
thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light ; but when thine eye is evil, 
thy whole body is full of darkness. 35. Take heed, therefore, that the light which is 
in thee be not darkness. 36. If thy whole body, therefore, be full of light, having 
no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle 
doth give thee light." Christ — such is the sign from heaven whose light God will 
diffuse over the world. He is the lamp which gives light to the house. God has 
not lighted it to allow it to be banished to an obscure corner ; He will put it on a 
candlestick, that it may shine before the eyes of all ; and this He will do by means 
of the resurrection. 'Kpvtzttjv, a place out of view, under a bed, e.g. (8 : 16). Tdv 
fiodiov, not a bushel, but the bushel ; there is but one in the house, which serves in 
turn as a measure, a dish, or a lantern.f But it is with this sign in relation to our 
soul, as with a lamp relatively to our body, ver. 34. To the light which shines with- 
out there must be a corresponding organ in the individual fitted to receive it, and 
which is thus, as it were, the lamp within. On the state of this organ depends the 
more or less of light which we receive from the external luminary, and which we 
actually enjoy. In the body this organ, which by means of the external light forms 
the light of the whole body, the hand, the foot, etc., is the eye ; everything, there- 

* Ver. 33. &. B. C. D. U. r, several Mnn. Syr. It* 11 *, omit tie after ovSeig. Instead 
of upvKTov, which the T. R. reads, with some Mnn., all the other documents read 
KpvKTTjv. The mss. are divided between to Qeyyos (T. H.) and to <p«s (xllex.), which 
appears to be taken from 8 : 16. Ver. 34. 6 Alex, add cov after o^Qaluos (the first). 
&. B. D. L. A. It. Vg. omit ovv after otuv. K. L. M. X. II. some Mnn. It* 11 *., eaTai 
instead of eotlv, K. M. U. X. n. 50 Mnn. ItP 16 "*! 116 , add earai after ckotclvov, Ver. 
36. D. Syr cur . ltpi«iqne > om it this verse. 

f M. F. Bovet, " Voyage en Terre-Sainte," p. 312. 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 3&9 

fore, depends on the state of this organ. For the soul it is— Jesus does not say what, 
He leaves us to guess — the heart, icapdia ; comp. Matt. 6 : 21 and 22. The understand- 
iDg, the will, the whole spiritual being, is illuminated by the divine light which the 
heart admits. With every motion in the way of righteousness there is a discharge of 
light over the whole soul, 'AnhovS, single, and hence in this place — which is in its 
original, normal state ; Troupes, corrupted, and hence diseased, in the meaning of the 
phrase irovijpus execv, to be ill. If the Jews were right in heart, they would see the 
divine sign put before their eyes as easily as the Queen of the South aud the Nine- 
vites perceived the less brilliant sign placed before them ; but their heart is perverse : 
that organ is diseased ; and hence the sign shines, and will shine, in vain before their 
view. The light without will not become light in them. 

Ver. 35. It is supremely important, therefore, for eveiy one to watch with the 
greatest care over the state of this precious organ. If the eye is not enlightened, 
what member of the body will be so ? The foot and hand will act in the darkness of 
night. So with the faculties of the soul when the heart is perverted from good. 
Ver. 36. But what a contrast to this condition is formed by that of a being who opens 
his heart fully to the truth, his spiritual eye to the brightness of the lamp which has 
been lighted by God Himself ! To avoid the tautology which the two members of 
the verse seem to present, we need only put the emphasis differently in the two prop- 
ositions ; in the first on okov, whole ; and in the second on (j>o)~eiv6v, full of light, 
connecting this word immediately with the following as its commentary : full of light 
as wlien . . . The very position of the words forbids any other grammatical ex- 
planation ; and it leads us to this meaning : " When, through the fact of the clear- 
ness of thine eye, thy whole body shall be penetrated with light, without there being 
in thee the least trace of darkness, then the phenomenon which will be wrought in 
thee will resemble what takes place on thy body when it is placed in the rays of a 
luminous focus." Jesus means, that from the inward part of a perfectly sanctified 
man there rays forth a splendor which glorifies the external man, as when he is shone 
upon from without. It is glory as the result of holiness. The phenomenon described 
here by Jesus is no other than that which was realized in Himself on the occasion of 
His transfiguration, and which He now applies to all believers. Passages such as 2 
Cor. 3 : 18 and Rom. 8 : 29 will always be the best commentary on this sublime dec- 
laration, which Luke alone has preserved to us, and which forms so perfect a conclu- 
sion to this discourse. 

Bleek having missed the meaning of this saying, and of the piece generally, 
accuses Luke of having placed it here without ground, and prefers the setting which 
it has in Matthew, in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, immediately after the 
maxim : " Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Undoubtedly this 
context of Matthew proves, as we have recognized, that the eye o,f the soul, accord- 
ing to the view of Jesus, is the heart. But what disturbs the purit}' of that organ is 
not merely avarice, as would appear from the context of Matt. 6. It is sin in general, 
perversity of heart hostile to the light ; and this more general application is precisely 
that which we find in Luke. This passage has been placed in the Sermon on the 
Mount, like so many others, rather because of the association of ideas than from his- 
torical reminiscence. The context of Luke, from 11 : 14 to ver. 36, is without fault. 
On the one side the accusation and demand made by the enemies of Jesus, vers. 15, 
16, on the other the enthusiastic exclamation of the believing woman, vers. 27, 28, 
furnish Jesus with the starting-points for His two contrasted descriptions — that of 
growing blindness which terminates in midnight darkness, and that of gradual illumi- 
nation which leads to perfect glory. We may, after this, estimate the justness of 



330 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

Holtzmann's judgment : "It is impossible to connect this passage about light, in a 
simple and natural way, with the discourse respecting Jonas." 

8. The Dinner at a Pharisee' 's Rouse : 11 : 37-12 : 12.— Agreeably to the connection 
established by Luke himself (12 : 1), we join the two pieces 11 : 37-54 and 12 : 1-12 
in one whole. Here, so far as Galilee is concerned, we have the culminating point 
of the struggle between Jesus and the pharisaic party. This period finds its counter- 
part in Judea, in the scenes related John 8, 10. The background of the conflict 
which now ensues is still the odious accusation refuted in the previous passage. 
The actual situation assigued to the repast is, according to Holtzmann, merely a fic- 
tion, the idea of which had been suggested to Luke by the figures of vers. 39 and 40. 
Is it not more natural to suppose that the images of vers. 39 and 40 were suggested 
to Jesus by the actual situation, which was that of a repast ? It is true, a great many 
of the sayings which compose this discourse are found placed by Matthew in a dif- 
ferent connection ; they form part of the great discourse in which Jesus denounced 
the divine malediction on the scribes and Pharisees in the temple a few days before 
His death (Matt. 23). But first it is to be remarked, that Holtzmann gives as little 
credit to the place which those sayings occupy in the composition of Matthew, as to 
the " scenery" of Luke. Then we have already found too many examples of the 
process of aggregation used in the first Gospel, to have our confidence shaken thereby 
in the narrative of Luke. We shall inquire, therefore, with impartiality, as we pro- 
ceed, which of the two situations is that which best suits the words of Jesus. 

This piece contains : 1st. The rebukes addressed to the Pharisees (vers. 37-44) ; 
2d. Those addressed to the scribes (vers. 45-54) ; 3d. The encouragements given to 
the disciples in face of the animosity to which they are exposed on the part of those 
enraged adversaries (12 : 1-12). 

1st. To the Pharisees: vers. 37-44.— Vers. 37 and 38.* The Occasion.— -This 
Pharisee had probably been one of the hearers of the previous discourse ; perhaps 
one of the authors of the accusation raised against Jesus. He had invited Jesus along 
with a certain number of his own colleagues (vers. 45 and 53), with the most malevo- 
lent intention. Thus is explained the tone of Jesus (ver 39, et seq.), which some com- 
mentators have pronounced impolite (!). The reading of some Fathers andVss., 
" He began to doubt (or to murmur, as dtaicpiveodcu sometimes means in the LXX.), 
and to say," is evidently a paraphrase. "Apiarov, the morning meal, as Se'nrvov, the 
principal meal of the day. The meaning of the expression elaelQdv aveTreoev is this : 
He seated Himself without ceremony, as He was when He entered. The Pharisees 
laid great stress on the rite of purification before meals (Mark 7 : 2-4 ; Matt. 15 : 1-3) ; 
and the Rabbins put the act of eating with unwashed hands in the same cate- 
gory as the sin of impurity. From the surprise of His host, Jesus takes occasion to 
stigmatize the false devotion of the Pharisees ; He does not mince matters ; for after 
what has just passed (ver. 15), war is openly declared. He denounces : 1st. The 
hypocrisy of the Pharisees (vers. 39-42) ; 2d. Their vainglorious spirit (ver. 43 ; 3d. 
The evil influence which their false devotion exercises over the whole people 
(ver. 44). 

Vers. 39-42. f Their Hypocrisy.—" And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Phar- 

* Ver. 38. Instead of iduv eBavfiaaev on, D. Syr our . ltP le »q« e , Vg. Tert. : rjp^ara 
diatcpivo/xevoS ev eavrco Xeyeiv diari. 

\ Ver. 42. & c . B. L. 2 Mnn., rrapeivat instead of a<pieva:. 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 331 

isees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter ; but your inward part is full 
of ravening and wickedness. 40. Ye fools, did not He that made that which is with- 
out, make that which is within also ? 41. Rather give alms of such things as are 
within ; and, behold, all things are clean unto you. 42. But woe unto you, Phari- 
sees ! for ye tithe mint and rue, and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment 
and the love of God : these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other un- 
done." God had appointed for His people certain washings, that they might culti- 
vate the sense of moral purity in His presence. And this is what the Pharisees have 
brought the rite to ; multiplying its applications at their pleasure, they think them- 
selves excused thereby from the duty of heart purification. Was it possible to go 
more directly in opposition to the divine intention : to destroy the practice of the 
duty by their practices, the end by the means ? Meyer and Bleek translate vvv, now, 
in the sense of time : " Things have now come to such a pass with you .. . ." It 
is more natural to give it the logical sense which it often has : " Well now ! There 
you are, you Pharisees ! I take you in the act." If, in the second member of the 
verse, the term to eoodev, the inward part, was not supplemented by vjutiv, your 
inward part, the most natural sense of the first member would be thus : " Ye make 
clean the outside of the vessels in which ye serve up the repast to your guests." 
Bleek maintains this meaning for the first proposition, notwithstanding the vix&v in 
the second, by joining this pron. to the two substantives, dpiray7~/S and Ttovrjpias : " But 
the inside [of the cups and platters] is full [of the products] of your ravenings and 
your wickedness. " But 1. This connection of v/utiv is forced; 2. Ver. 40 does not 
admit of this sense, for we must understand by Him who made both that which is with- 
out and that which is within, the potter who made the plates, the goldsmith who 
fashioned the cups, which is absurd. As in ver. 40 the 6 -KoiTJaai, He that made, is 
very evidently the Creator, the inward part, ver. 40 and ver. 39, can only be that of 
man, the heart. We must therefore allow an ellipsis in ver. 39, such as frequently 
occurs in comparisons, and by which, for the sake of conciseness, one of the two 
terms is suppressed in each member of the comparison : " Like a host who should 
set before his guests plates and cups perfectly cleansed outside, [but full of filth 
inside], 39a, ye think to please God by presenting to Him [your bodies purified by 
lustrations, but at the same time] your inward part full of ravening and wickedness, 
395." The inward part denotes the whole moral side of human life, 'kpizayr), raven- 
ing — avarice carried out in act ; Tzovrjpia, wickedness — the inner corruption which is the 
source of it. Jesus ascends from sin in act to its first principle. 

The apostrophe, ye fools, ver. 40, is then easily understood, as well as the argu- 
ment on which it rests. God, who made the body, made the soul also ; the purifica- 
tion of the one cannot therefore, in His eyes, be a substitute for the other. A well- 
cleansed body will not render a polluted soul acceptable to Him, any more than a 
brightly polished platter will render distasteful meat agreeable to a guest ; for God is 
a spirit. This principle lays pharisaism in the dust. Some commentators have given 
this verse another meaning, which Luther seems to adopt : " The man who has made 
(pure) the outside, has not thereby made (pure) the inside." But this meaning of 
nocelv is inadmissible, and the ovx heading the proposition proves that it is interroga- 
tive. The meaning of the parallel passage in Matt. 23 : 25, 26 is somewhat different : 
" The contents of the cup and platter must be purified by filling them only with 
goods lawfully acquired ; in this way, the outside, should it even be indifferently 
cleansed, will yet be sufficiently pure." It is at bottom the same thought, but suffi- 



o'S'Z COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

ciently modified in form, to prove that the change cannot be explained by the use of 
one and the same written source, but must arise from oral tradition. To the rebuke 
administered there succeeds the counsel, ver. 41. We have translated irljjv by rather. 
The literal sense, excepting, is thus explained : " All those absurdities swept away, 
here is what alone remains. ' ' At first sight, this saying appears to correspond with 
the idea expressed in Matthew's text, rather than with the previous saying in Luke. 
For the expression r& evovra, that which is within, cannot in this verse refer to the 
inward part of man, but denotes undoubtedly the contents of the cups and platters. 
But it is precisely because ra evovra, that lohich is within, is not at all synonymous with 
eauOsv, the inward part, in the preceding context, that Luke has employed a different 
expression. Td evovra, the contents of the cups and platters, denotes what remains in 
those vessels at the close of the feast. The meaning is : " Do you wish, then, that 
those meats and those wines should not be defiled, and should not defile you ? Do not 
think that it is enough for you carefully to wash your hands before eating ; there is a 
surer means : let some poor man partake of them. It is the spirit of love, O ye 
Pharisees, and not material lustrations, which will purify your banquets." Kal Idov, 
and behold ; the result will be produced as if by the magic. Is it not selfishness which 
is the real pollution in the eyes of God ? The Sore, give, is opposed to apTcayrj, raven- 
ing, ver. 39. This saying by no means includes the idea of the merit of works. 
Could Jesus fall into pharisaism at the very moment when He was laying it in the 
dust ? Love, which gives value to the gift, excludes by its very nature that seeking 
of merit which is the essence of pharisaism. 

The alia, but, ver. 42, sets the conduct of the Pharisees in opposition to that 
which has been described ver. 41, in order to condemn them by a new contrast ; still, 
however, it is the antithesis between observances and moral obedience. Every 
Israelite was required to pay the tithe of his income (Lev. 27 : 30 ; Num. 18 : 21). 
The Pharisees had extended this command to the smallest productions in their gar- 
dens, such as mint, rue, and herbs, of which the law had said nothing. Matthew 
mentions other plants, anise and cummin (23 : 23). Could it be conceived that the 
one writer could have made so frivolous a change on the text of the other, or on a 
common document ? In opposition to those pitiful returns, which are their own 
invention, Jesus sets the fundamental obligations imposed by the law, which they 
neglect without scruple. KpiaiS, judgment; here the discernment of what is just, 
the good sense of the heart, including justice and equity (Sirach 33 : 34). Matthew 
adds eleos and mans, mercy and faith, and omits the love of God, which Luke gives. 
The two virtues indicated by the latter correspond to the two parts *of the summary 
of the law. The moderation and wisdom of Jesus are conspicuous in the last words 
of the verse ; He will in no wise break the old legal mould, provided it is not kept at 
the expense of its contents. 

Ver. 43.* Vainglory. — " Woe unto you, Pharisees ! for ye love the uppermost 
seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets." The uppermost seats in the 
synagogues were reserved for the doctors. This rebuke is found more fully devel- 
oped, 20 : 45-47. 

'Ver. 44. Contagious Influence. — " Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypo- 
crites ! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are 

* Ver. 43. &. B. C. L. some Mnn. Syr cur . ItP leri i ,,e , omit ypaju/uareiS nai bapioaioi 
vironpirai, which the T. R. here adds with the other documents (taken from Matthew), 



COMMEXTAKY OK ST. LUKE. 333 

not aware of them." Jesus by this figure describes the moral fact which He else. 
where designates as the leaven of the Pharisees. According to Num. 19 : 1 6, to touch 
a grave rendered a man uuclean for eight days, as did the touch of a dead body. 
Nothing more easy, then, than for one to defile himself by touching with his foot a 
grave on a level with the ground, without even suspecting its existence. Such is 
contact with the Pharisees ; men think they have to do with saints : they yield them- 
selves up to their influence, and become infected with their spirit of pride and hypoc- 
risy, against which they were not put on their guard. In Matthew (23 : 27), the same 
figure receives a somewhat different application. A man looks with complacency at 
a sepulchre well built and whitened, and admires it. But when, on reflection, he 
says * Within there is nothing save rottenness, what a different impression does he 
experience ! . Such is the feeling which results from observing the Pharisees. That 
the two texts should be borrowed from the same document, or taken the one from 
the other, is quite as inconceivable as it is easy to understand how oral tradition 
should have given to the same figure those two different applications. 

2d. To the Scribes: vers. 45-54. — A remark made b}^ a scribe gives a new turn to 
the conversation. The Pharisees were only a religious party ; but the scribes, the 
experts in the law, formed a profession strictly so called. They were the learned, 
the wise, who discovered nice prescriptions in the law, such as that alluded to in ver. 
42, and gave them over for the observance of their pious disciples. The scribes 
played the part of clerical guides. The majority of them seem to have belonged to 
the pharisaic party ; for we meet with no others in the N. T. But their official dig- 
nity gave them a higher place in the theocracy than that of a mere party. Hence the 
exclamation of him who here interrupts Jesus : ' ' Thus saying, Thou reproachest us, 
us scribes also, ' ' which evidently constitutes in his eyes a much graver offence than 
that of reproaching the Pharisees. In His answer Jesus upbraids them on three 
grounds, as He had done the Pharisees : 1st. Eeligious intellectualism (ver. 46) ; 
2d. Persecuting fanaticism (vers. 47-51) ; M. The pernicious influence which they 
exercised on the religious state of the people (ver. 52). Ver. 53 and 54 describe 
the end of the feast. 

Vers. 45 and 46.* Literalism. — " Then answered one of the lawyers, and said unto 
him, Master, thus saying thou reproachest us also. 46. And He said, Woe unto you 
also, ye lawyers ! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye your- 
selves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers. ' ' There seems to be no essen- 
tial difference between the terms vofutcog, vojuodiddcKaAoS, and ■ypa/Ltfiarev'S. See ver. 
53 ; and comp. ver. 52 with Matt. 23 : 13. Yet there must be a shade of difference at 
least between the words ; according to the etymology, vofitKoS denotes the expert, the 
casuist, who discusses doubtful cases, the Mosaic jurist, as Meyer says ; vo/xoditida- 
naloc, the doctor, the professor who gives public or private courses of Mosaic law ; 
■ypafifiarevs would include in general all those who are occupied with the Scriptures, 
either in the way of theoretical teaching or practical application. 

Our Lord answers the scribe, as He had answered the Pharisee, in three sentences 
of condemnation. The first rebuke is the counterpart of that which He had ad- 
dressed in the first place to the latter, to wit, literalism ; this is the twin brother of 
formalism. The paid scribes were infinitely less respectable than the generality of 

* Ver. 46. G-. M. some Mnn. ltP leri i« e , Vg., eve no Sciictvao instead of evt tuv 

d(lKTv2,OV. 



134 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 



the Pharisees. As to those minute prescriptions which they discovered daily in the 
law, and which they recommended to the zeal of devotees, they had small regard for 
them in their own practice. They seemed to imagine that, so far as they were con- 
cerned, the knowing dispensed with the doing. Such is the procedure characterized 
by Jesus in ver. 46. Constantly drawing the heaviest burdens from the law, they 
bind them on the shoulders of the simple. But as to themselves, they make not the 
slightest effort to lift them. 

Vers. 47-51.* Persecuting Orthodoxy. — " Woe unto you ! for ye build the sepul- 
chres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. 48. Truly ye are witnesses that 
ye allow the deeds of your fathers : for they indeed killed them, and ye build their 
sepulehres. 49. Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets 
and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute : 50. That the blood of 
all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required 
of this generation ; 51. From the blood of Abel, unto the blood of Zacharias, which 
perished between the altar and the temple : verily I say unto you, it shall be required 
of this generation." Head religion is almost always connected with hatred of living 
piety, or spiritual religion, and readily becomes persecuting. All travellers, and par- 
ticularly Robinson, mention the remarkable tombs, called tombs of the prophets, 
which are seen in the environs of Jerusalem. It was perhaps at that time that the 
Jews were busied with those structures ; they thought thereby to make amends for 
the injustice of their fathers. By a bold turn, which translates the external act into 
a thought opposed to its ostensible ©bject, but in accordance with its real spirit, 
Jesus says to them : " Your fathers killed ; ye bury ; therefore ye continue and fin- 
ish their work." In the received reading, fiapTvpelre, ye bear witness, signifies: 
" When ye bury, ye give testimony to the reality of the bloodshed committed by 
your fathers." But the Alex, reading paprvpeS ears, ye are witnesses, is undoubtedly 
preferable. It includes an allusion to the official part played by witnesses in the 
punishment of stoning (Deut. 17 : 7 ; Acts 7 : 58). It is remarkable that the two 
terms paprvS witness, and owevdonelv, to approve, are also found united in the descrip- 
tion of Stephen's martyrdom. They seem to have had a technical significance. 
Thus : "Ye take the part of witnesses and consummators of your fathers' crimes." 
The reading of the Alex., which omit avruv tu juvrjjuela, their grazes, at the end of ver. 
48, has a forcible conciseness. Unfortunately those mss. with the T. R read avrovc 
after aireKTEivav ; and this regimen of the first verb appears to settle that of the sec- 
ond. In connection with the conduct of the Jews toward their prophets, whom they 
slew, and honored immediately after their death, the saying has been rightly quoted : 
sit licet divus, dummodo non vivus. The parallel passage in Matthew (23 : 29-31) has a 
rather different sense : " Ye say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we 
would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets ; "Wherefore 
ye witness against yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the 
prophets." The oneness of sentiment is here proved, not by the act of building the 
tombs, but by the word children. The two forms show such a difference, that they 
could not proceed from one and the same document. That of Luke appears every 
way preferable. In Matthew, the relation between the words put by Jesus into the 
mouth of the Jews, ver. 30, and the building of the tombs, ver. 29, is not clear. 

* Ver. 47. &*. C, kcll ol instead of ot de. Ver. 48. &. B. L., juaprvpei eare instead 
of papTvpeiTe (taken from Matthew). J*. B. D. L. It ali i. omit avruv to. /Ltv-r/juela after 
oiKodofieiTe. Ver, 49. Marcion omitted vers. 49-51. 



COMMENTARY OK SX. LUKE. 335 

Aid tovto nai : " And because the matter is really so, notwithstanding appearances 
to the contrary, the wisdom of God hath said." What does Jesus understand by the 
wisdom of God ? Ewald, Bleek, etc., think that Jesus is here quoting a lost book, 
which assigned this saying to the wisdom of God, or which itself bore this title. 
Bleek supposes that the quotation from this book does not go further than to the vai, 
ver. 51 ; the discourse of Jesus is resumed at the words, Verily 1 say unto you. But, 

1. The discourses of Jesus present no other example of an extTa-canonical quotation ; 

2. The term apostle, in what follows, seems to betray the language of Jesus Himself ; 

3. The thought of vers. 50 and 51 is too profound and mysterious to be ascribed to 
any human source whatever. According to Meyer, we have indeed a saying of Jesus 
here ; but as it was repeated in oral tradition, it had become a habit, out of reverence 
for Jesus, to quote it in this form : The wisdom of God (Jesus) said, I send . . . 
Comp. Matt. 23 : 34 : 1 send (eyd airooreHu). This form of quotation was mistakenly 
regarded by Luke as forming part of the discourse of Jesus. But Luke has not 
made us familiar thus far with such blunders ; and the did tovto, on account of this — 
which falls so admirably into the context of Luke, and which is found identically in 
Matthew, where it has, so to speak, no meaning (as Holtzmann acknowledges, p. 228) 
— is a striking proof in favor of the exactness of the document from which Luke 
draws. Baur thinks that by the word, the wisdom of God, Luke means to designate 
the Gospel of Matthew, itself already received in the Church as God's word at the 
time when Luke wrote. But it must first be proved that Luke kuew and used the 
Gospel of Matthew. Our exegesis at every step has proved the contrary ; besides, 
we have no example of an apostolical author having quoted the writing of one of his 
colleagues with such a formula of quotation. Neander and Gess think that here we 
have a mere parenthesis inserted by Luke, in which he reminds us in passing of a 
sayiug which Jesus in point of fact did not utter till later (Matt. 23). An interpola- 
tion of this kind is far from natural. The solitary instance which could possibly be 
cited (Luke 7 : 29, 30) seems to us more than doubtful. 

Olshausen asserts that Jesus intends an allusion to the words (2 Chron. 24 : 19) : 
' ' He sent prophets to them, to bring them again unto Him ; but they would not re- 
ceive them." But the connection between those two sajdngs is very indirect. I 
think there is a more satisfactory solution. The book of the O. T. which in the 
primitive Church as well as among the Jews, in common with the books of Jesus 
Sirach and Wisdom, bore the name of aofyia, or wisdom of God, was that of Proverbs.* 
Now here is the passage which we find in that book (1 : 20-31) : " Wisdom uttereth 
her voice in the streets, and crieth in the chief places of concourse . . . Behold, 
I will pour out my Spirit upon you (LXX., e/x^ nvotii firjcnv), and I will make known 
my words unto you . . . But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would 
none of my reproof. Therefore I will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when 
your fear cometh .^U>. . (and I shall say), Let them eat of the fruit of their 
works !" This is the passage which Jesus seems to me to quote. For the breath of 
His Spirit, whom God promises to send to His people to instruct and reprove them, 
Jesus substitutes the living organs of the Spirit — His apostles, the new prophets ; 
then He applies to the Jews of the day (ver. 496) the sin of obstinate resistance pro- 
claimed in the same passage ; finally (vers. 50, 51), He paraphrases the idea of final 

* Clemens Rom., Irenaeus, Hegesippus call it ?/ ivavupeToS ao&la ; Melito (accord- 
ing to the reading f/ icai, (Eus. iv. 33, ed. Laemm.) ooaia. See Wieseler, " Stud, und 
Kritik."1856, J. 



336 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

punishment, which closes this prophecy. The parallelism seems to us to be com- 
plete, and justifies in the most natural manner the use of the term, the wisdom of God. 
By the words prophets and apostles Jesus contrasts this new race of the Spirit's 
agents, which is to continue the work of the old, with the men of the dead letter, 
with those scribes whom He is now addressing. The lot which lies before them at 
the hands of the latter will be precisely the same as the prophets had to meet at the 
hands of their fathers ; thus to the sin of the fathers there will be justly added that 
of the children, until the measure be full. It is a law of the Divine government, 
which controls the lot of societies as well as that of individuals, that God does not 
correct a development once commenced by premature judgment. While still warn- 
ing the sinner, He leaves his sin to ripen ; and at the appointed hour He strikes, not 
for the present wickedness only, but for all which preceded. The continuous unity 
of the sin of the fathers involves their descendants, who, while able to change their 
conduct, persevere and go all the length of the way opened up by the former. This 
continuation on the part of the children includes an implicit assent, in virtue of 
which they become accomplices, responsible for the entire development. A decided 
breaking away from the path followed was the only thing which could avail to rid 
them of tbis terrible implication in the entire guilt. According to this law it is that 
Jesus sees coming on the Israel round about Him the whole storm of wrath which 
has gathered from the torrents of innocent blood shed since the beginning of the hu- 
man race. Comp. the two threatenings of St. Paul, which look like a commentary 
on this passage (Rom. 2 : 3-5 ; 1 Thess. 2 : 15, 16). 

Jesus quotes the first and last examples of martyrdoms mentioned in the canoni- 
cal history of the old covenant. Zacharias, the son of the high priest Jehoiada, ac- 
cording to 2 Chron. 24 : 20, was stoned in the temple court by order of King Joash. 
As Chronicles probably formed the last book of the Jewish canon, this murder, the 
last related in the O. T., was the natural counterpart to that of Abel. Jesus evi- 
dently alludes to the words of Genesis (4 : 10), " The voice of thy brother's blood cri- 
eth from the ground," and to those of the dying Zacharias, " The Lord look upon it, 
and require it." Comp. knfyrriBrj , ver. 50, and EK^riTTjOrjaerai, ver. 51 (in Luke). If 
Matthew calls Zacharias the son of Barachias, it may be reconciled with 2 Chron. 24 
by supposing that Jehoiada, who must then have been 130 years of age, was his 
grandfather, and that the name of his father Barachias is omitted because he had died 
long before. Anyhow, if there was an error, it must be charged against the com- 
piler of the first Gospel (as is proved by the form of Luke), not against Jesus. 

Ver. 52 : The Monopoly of Theology. — " Woe unto you, lawyers ! for ye have 
taken away the key of knowledge : ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were 
entering in ye hindered." The religious despotism with which Jesus in the third 
place charges the scribes, is a natural consequence of their fanatical attachment to 
the letter. This last rebuke corresponds to the third which He had addressed to the 
Pharisees — the pernicious influence exercised by them over the whole people. Jesus 
represents knowledge (yvuaic) under the figure of a temple, into which the scribes 
should have led the people, but whose gate they close, and hold the key with jealous 
care. This knowledge is not that of the gospel, a meaning which would lead us out- 
side the domain of the scribes ; it is the real living knowledge of God, such as might 
already be found, at least to a certain extent, in the O. T. The key is the Scrip- 
tures, the interpretation of which the scribes reserved exclusively to themselves. 
But their commentaries, instead of tearing aside the veil of the letter, that their hear- 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 337 

ers might penetrate to the spirit, thickened it, on the contrary, as if to prevent Israel 
from beholding the face of the living God who revealed Himself in the O. T., and 
from coming into contact with Him. The pres. part, eioepxofievoi denotes those who 
were ready to rise to this vital knowledge, and who only lacked the sound interpreta- 
tion of Scripture to bring them to it. 

Matthew, in a long discourse which he puts into the mouth of Jesus in the temple 
(chap. 23), has combined in one compact mass the contents of those two apostrophes 
addressed to the Pharisees and lawyers, which are so nicely distinguished by Luke. 
Jesus certainly uttered in the temple, as Matthew relates, a vigorous discourse 
addressed to the scribes and Pharisees. Luke himself (20 : 45-47) indicates the time, 
and gives a summary of it. But it cannot be doubted that here, as in the Sermon on 
the Mount, the first Gospel has combined many sayings uttered on different occa- 
sions. The distribution of accusations between the Pharisees and lawyers, as we 
find ft in Luke, corresponds perfectly to the characters of those two classes. The 
question of the scribe (ver. 45) seems to be indisputably authentic. Thus Luke shows 
himself here again the historian properly so called. 

Vers. 53. and 54.* Historical Conclusion. — These verses describe a scene of violence, 
perhaps unique, in the life of Jesus. Numerous variations prove the very early 
alteration of the text. According to the reading of the principal Alex., And wJien 
He had gone thence, this scene must have taken place after Jesus had left the Phari- 
see's house ; but this reading seems designed to establish a closer connection with 
what follows (12 : 1, et seq.), and produces the impression of a gloss. On the other 
hand, the omission of the wOrds, and seeking, and that they might accuse Him, in B. 
L. (ver. 54), renders the turn of expression more simple and lively. The reading 
anooTOfii&iv {to blunt) has no meaning. We must read anoorofxari&iv, to utter, and 
then to cause to utter. 

3d. To the Disciples : 12 : 1-12. — This violent scene had found its echo outside ; 
a considerable crowd had flocked together. Excited by the animosity of their chiefs, 
the multitude showed a disposition hostile to Jesus and His disciples. Jesus feels the 
need of turning to His own, and giving them, in presence of all, those encouragements 
which their situation demands. Besides, He has uttered a word which must have 
gone to their inmost heart, some of you they will slay and persecute, and He feels the 
need of supplying some counterpoise, Thus is explained the exhortation which fol- 
lows, and which has for its object to raise their courage and give them boldness in 
testifying. Must not one be very hard to please, to challenge, as Holtzmann does, 
the reality of a situation so simple ? 

Jesus encourages His apostles : 1st. By the certainty of the success of their cause 
(vers. 1-3) ; 2d. By the assurance which He gives them as to their persons (vers. 4-7) ; 
M. By the promise of a glorious recompense, which He contrasts with the punish- 
ment of the timid, and of their adversaries (vers. 8-10) ; finally, By the assurance 
of powerful aid (vers. 11, 12). 

Vers. 1-3 :f The Assured Success of their Ministry, and the Fall of their Adver- 

* Ver, 53. &. B. C. L. read Kaneidev e^eWovroc avrov instead of XeyoiroS . . . avrovS. 
L. S. V, A. several Mnn., airooTopi&iv instead of airoorofiarLfrLv. Ver. 54. &. X. 
omit avrov after evedpevovreS. 15 Mjj. Syr. It. read fyrovvreS instead of itai fyrovvTcS ; 
&. B. L. omit these words. &. B. L. omit va KarTj-yoprjauacv avrov. 

X Ver. 1. Instead of ev ois . . . ox^w, D. ltP leri <i ue , Yg., troXkuv de ox^uv ovvirep 
iiXQvruv KVKhw. Tert. Vg. omit npurov. 



33g COMMENTARY OjS ST. LTJ&E* 

saries.—" In tlie mean time, when there were gathered together an innumerable mul- 
titude of people, insomuch that they trode one upon another, He began to say unto 
His disciples first of all : Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypoc- 
risy. 2. For there "is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that 
shall not be known. 3. Therefore, whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall 
be heard in the light ; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets 
shall be proclaimed upon the house-tops." The words ev ols, on which, establish a 
close connection between the following scene and that which precedes. This gather- 
ing, which is formed as in the previous scene (11 : 29), is readily explained by the 
general circumstances— those of a journey. When Jesus had arrived at a village, 
some time was needed to make the population aware of it ; and soon it flocked to 
Him en masse. "E-ptjaro, He began, imparts a solemn character to the words which 
follow. Jesus, after having spoken severely to His adversaries, now addresses the 
little company of His disciples, lost among that immense throng, in language full of 
boldness. It is the cry onward, with the promise of victory. The words, to the dis- 
ciples, are thus the key to the discourse following. The word nptirov, before all, should 
evidently be connected with the verb which follows, beware ye. Comp. 9 : 61, 10 : 5. 
Meyer concludes, from the absence of the article before vivoicpiois, that the leaven is 
not hypocrisy itself, but a style of teaching which has the character of hypocrisy. 
This is a very forced meaning. The absence of the article is very common before 
terms which denote virtues and vices. (Winer, " Gramm. des K. T. Sprachidioms," 
§ 19, 1.) Leaven is the emblem of every active principle, good or bad, which pos- 
sesses the power of assimilation. The devotion of the Pharisees had given a false 
direction to the whole of Israelitish piety (vers. 39, 44). This warning may have 
been repeated several times (Mark 8 : 13 ; Matt. 16 : 6). 

The tie adversative of ver. 2 determines the sense of the verse: "But all this 
Pharisaic hypocrisy shall be unveiled. The impure foundation of this so vaunted 
holiness shall come fully to the light, and then the whole authority of those masters 
of opinion shall crumble away ; but, in place thereof (dvQ' &v, ver. 3), those whose 
voice cannot now find a hearing, save within limited and obscure circles, shall become 
the teachers of the world. " The Hillels and Gamaliels will give place to new teach- 
ers, who shall fill the world with their doctrine, and those masters shall be Peter, 
John, Matthew, here present ! This substitution of a new doctorate for the old is 
announced in like manner to Nicodemus (John 3 : 10, 11). Here, as there, the poeti- 
cal rhythm of the parallelism indicates that elevation of feeling which arises from so 
great and transporting a thought. Comp. the magnificent apostrophe of St. Paul, 1 
Cor. 1 : 20 : " Where is the wise? Where is the scribe . . . ?" By St. Paul's 
time the substitution had been fully effected. Ta/uelov, the larder (from rsuvu) ; and 
hence the locked chamber, the innermost apartment, in opposition to the public 
room. The roofs of houses in the East are terraces, from which one can speak with 
those who are in the street. This is the emblem of the greatest possible publicity. 
The mouth of the scribes shall be stopped, and the teaching of the poor disciples shall 
be heard over the whole universe. The apophthegms of vers. 2 and 3 may be applied 
in many ways, and Jesus seems to have repeated them often with varied applications. 
Comp. 8 : 17. In the parallel passage (Matt. 10 : 27), the matter in question is the 
teaching of Jesus, not that of the apostles ; and this saying appears in the form of an 
exhortation addressed to the latter : " What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in 
light." Naturally the maxim which precedes (ver. 2 of Luke) should also receive a 



COMMENTARY ON" ST. LUKE. 339 

different application in Matthew (ver. 26) : " Everything that is true must come to 
the light. Publish, therefore, without fear whatsoever I have told you." 

Vers. 4-7.* Personal Security.— ' And 1 say unto you, my friends, Be not afraid 
of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. 5. But I 
will forewarn you whom ye shall fear ; fear Him which, after He hath killed, hath 
power to cast into hell ; yea, I say unto you, fear Him. 6. Are not five sparrows 
sold for two farthings ; and not one of them is forgotten before God ? 7. But even 
the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore : ye are of more 
value than many sparrows." The success of their cause is certain. But what of 
their personal future ? After 11 : 49 there was good cause for some disquiet on this 
point. Here the heart of Jesus softens : the thought of the lot which some of them 
will have to undergo seems to render His own more dear to Him. Hence the tender 
form of address, To you, my friends. Certainly Luke did not invent this word ; and 
if Matthew, in whom it is not found (10 : 28, et seq.), had used the same document as 
Luke, he would not have omitted it. Olshausen has taken up the strange idea, that 
by him who can cast into hell we are to understand, not God, but the devil, as if 
Scripture taught us to fear the devil, and not rather to resist him to his face (1 Pet. 
5:9; James 4 : 7). The mss. are divided between the forms diroKTewovTuv (Eolico- 
Doric, according to Bleek), clttoktevovtuv (a corruption of the preceding), and 
aTroKTeivovTcov (the regular form). The term Gehenna (hell) properly signifies valley of 
Hinnom (□jn \3> Josh. 15 : 8, comp. 18 : 16 ; 2 Kings 23 : 10 ; Jer. 7 : 31, etc.). It 
was a fresh and pleasant valley to the south of the hill of Zion, where were found in 
early times the king's gardens. But as it was there that the worship of Moloch was 
celebrated under the idolatrous kings, Josiah converted it into a place for sewage. 
The valley thus became the type, and its name the designation, of hell. This saying 
of Jesus distinguishes soul from body as emphatically as modern spiritualism can do. 
"What are we to think of M. Renan, who dares to assert that Jesus did not know the 
exact distinction between those two elements of our being ! 

Jesus does not promise. His disciples that their life shall always be safe. But if 
they perish, it will not be without the consent of an all-powerful Being, who is called 
their Father. The sayings which follow express by the most forcible emblems the 
idea of a providence which extends to the smallest details of human life. To make a 
more appreciable sum, Luke speaks of five birds of the value of about two farthings. 
Matthew, who speaks of two birds only, gives their value at one farthing ; that is, a 
little dearer. Did five cost proportionally a little less than two ? Can we imagine 
one of the two evangelists amusing himself by making such changes in the text of 
the other, or in that of a common document ! The expression before God is Hebrais- 
tic ; it means that there is not one of those small creatures which is not individually 
present to the view of divine omniscience. The knowledge of God extends not only 
to our persons, but even to the most insignificant parts of our being — to those 140,- 
000 hairs of which we lose some every day without paying the least attention. No 
fear, then ; ye shall not fall without God's consent ; and if He consent, it is because 
it will be for His child's good. 

Vers. 8-10. f TJie Becompense of faithful Disciples, contrasted with tlie Punishment 

* Ver, 4. 5 Mjj. 10 Mnn. read nspiaaov instead of nspcoaoTepov. Ver. 7. B. L. R. 
It ali i. omit ow after /j.?]. 6 Mjj. 60 Mnn. Vg. add vfieti after dia<f>epere (taken from 
Matthew). 

f Ver. 8. &. D. read on after v/juv. Marcion omitted ruv ayyeXuv. Ver. 9. A. D. 
K. Q. n. 20 Mnn., e/inpoa ev instead of the first evomov (according to Matthew). 



340 COMMEHTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

of the Cowardly, and with that of Adversaries. — " Also 1 say unto you, Whosoever shall 
confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of 
God. 9. But he that denieth me before men, shall be denied before the angels of 
God. 10. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be for- 
given him ; but unto him that blaspherneth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be 
forgiven." The profession of the gospel may undoubtedly cost the disciples dear ; 
but if they persevere, it assures them of a magnificent recompense. Jesus, when glo- 
rified, will requite them by declaring them His before the heavenly throng, for what 
they did for Him by acknowledging Him their Lord below at the time of His hu- 
miliation. The gnostic Heracleon remarked the force of the prep, h with SjuoXoyelv. 
It expresses the rest of faith in Him who is confessed. Ver. 9 guards the disciples 
against the danger of denial. This warning was by no means out of place at the 
time when they were surrounded by furious enemies. It is to be remarked that Jesus 
does not say He will deny the renegade, as He said that He would confess the confess- 
or. The verb is here in the passive, as if to show that this rejection will be a self- 
consummated act. 

Ver. 10 glances at a danger more dreadful still than that of being rejected as a 
timid disciple. This punishment may have an end. But the sin of which ver. 10 
speaks is forever unpardonable. This terrible threat naturally applies to the sin of 
the adversaries of Jesus, to which His thought recurs in closing. They sin, not 
through timidity, but through active malice. By the expression blaspheme against the 
Holy Spirit Jesus alludes to the accusation which had given rise to this whole con- 
flict (11 : 15), and by which the works of that divine agent in the hearts of men 
(comp. Matt. 12 : 28, " If least out devils by the Spirit of God") had been ascribed 
to the spirit of darkness. That was knowingly and deliberately to insult the holi- 
ness of the principle from which all good in human life proceeds. To show the 
greatness of this crime of high treason, Jesus compares it with an outrage committed 
against His own person. He calls the latter a simple word (hoyov), an imprudent 
word, not a blasphemy. To utter a word against the poor and humble Son of man is 
a sin which does not necessarily proceed from malice. Might it not be the position 
of a sincerely pious Jew, who was still ruled by prejudices with which he had been 
imbued by his pharisaic education, to regard Jesus not as the expected Messiah, but 
as an enthusiast, a visionary, or even an impostor ? Such a sin resembles that of the 
woman who devoutly brought her contribution to the pile of Huss, and at the sight 
of whom the martyr exclaimed, Sancta simplicitas. Jesus is ready to pardon in this 
world or in the next every indignity offered merely to His person ; but an insult 
offered to goodness as such, and to its living principle in the heart of humanity, the 
Holy Spirit, the impious audacity of putting the holiness of His works to the ac- 
count of the spirit of evil — that is what He calls blaspheming the Holy Spirit, and 
what He declares unpardonable. The history of Israel has fully proved the truth of 
this threatening. This people perished not for having nailed Jesus Christ to the 
cross. Otherwise Good Friday would have been the day of their judgment, and God 
would not have continued to offer them for forty years the pardon of their crime. It 
was its rejection of the apostolic preaching, its obstinate resistance to the Spirit of 
Pentecost, which filled up the measure of Jerusalem's sin. And it is with individ- 
uals as with that nation. The sin which is forever unpardonable, is not the rejection 
of the truth, in consequence of a misunderstanding, such as that of so many unbe- 
lievers who confound the gospel with this or that false form, which is nothing better 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 341 

than its caricature. It is hatred of holiness as such — a hatred which leads men to 
make the gospel a work of pride or fraud, and to ascribe it to the spirit of evil. This 
is not to sin against Jesus personally ; it is to insult the divine principle which ac- 
tuated Him. It is hatred of goodness itself in its supreme manifestation. 

The form in which Matthew (12 : 31, 32) has preserved this warning differs con- 
siderably from that of Luke ; and that of Mark (3 : 28, 29) differs in its turn from 
that of Matthew. It is wholly inconceivable, that in a statement of such gravity the 
evangelists arbitrarily introduced changes into a written text which they had before 
their eyes. On the contrary, we can easily understand how this saying while circu- 
lating in the churches in the shape of oral tradition, assumed somewhat different 
forms. As to the place assigned to this declaration by the synoptics, that which Mat- 
thew and Mark give, immediately after the accusation which called it forth, appears 
at first sight preferable. Nevertheless, the connection which it has in Luke's context 
with what precedes and what follows, is not difficult to apprehend. There is at once 
a gradation in respect of the sin of weakness mentioned ver. 9, and a contrast to the 
promise of vers. 11 and 12, where this Holy Spirit, the subject of blasphemy on the 
part of the Pharisees, is presented as the powerful support of the persecuted disciples. 
There is thus room for doubt. 

Vers. 11 and 12.* The Aid.— " When they bring you unto the synagogues, 
and before magistrates and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing 
ye shall answer, or what ye shall say : 12. For the Holy Ghost shall teach you 
in the same hour what ye ought to say." Jesus seems to* take pleasure in 
enumerating all the different kinds of powers whose hostility they shall have 
to feel. Iwayuyal, the Jewish tribunals, having a religious character ; apxai, 
Gentile authorities, purely civil, from provincial prefects up to the emperor ; 
e^ovaiat, any power whatsoever. But let them not make preparation to plead ! 
Their answer will be supplied to them on the spot, both as to its form {iz&S, 
how) and substance (n, what). And their part will not be confined to defending 
themselves ; they will take the offensive ; they will bear testimony (tl elmjre, what ye 
shall say). In this respect, also, everything shall be given them. Witness Peter and 
Stephen before the Sanhedrim, St. Paul before Felix and Festus ; they do not merely 
defend their person ; they preach the gospel. Thus the Holy Spirit will so act in 
them, that they shall only have to yield themselves to Him as His mouthpiece. The 
parallel passage occurs in Matthew in the instructions given to the Twelve (10 : 19, 
20). The form is different enough to prove that the two compilations are not founded 
on the same text. Comp. also a similar thought (John 15 : 26, 27). This saying at- 
tests the reality of the psychological phenomenon of inspiration. Jesus asserts that 
the spirit of God can so communicate with the spirit of man, that the latter shall be 
only the organ of the former. 

Holtzmann sees in all those sayings, 12 : 1-12, only a combination of materials 
arbitrarily connected by Luke, and placed here in a fictitious framework. A dis- 
course specially addressed to the disciples seems to him out of place in the midst of 
this crowd (p. 94). Yet he cannot help making an exception of vers. 1-3, which 
may be regarded as suitably spoken before a large multitude. But if we admit ever 
so little the historical truth of the striking words, I say unto you, you my friends (ver. 

* Ver. 11. 1*. B. L. X. some Mnn. lt ali 9. Vg., eiotyepuiuv instead of Trpoapepuoiv. 
D. It ali i., (bepuocv. &. D. R some Mnn., eiS instead of em. &. B. L. Q. R. X. some 
Mnn., ^epi/uvTjaTjTE instead of fiepi/xvare. D. Syr. ItP le "Ta^ om ^ ^ Tl> 



342 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

4), we must acknowledge that they serve to distinguish the disciples from other per- 
sons present, and who are not of the same mind. The promise addressed to faithful 
confessors (ver. 9) also receives from the hostile surroundings a quite peculiar appro- 
priateness. The threat of ver. 10 supposes the presence of adversaries who have ca- 
lumniated Jesus. In short, the announcement of persecutions, and the promise of 
the Holy Spirit's aid, vers. 11, 12, find a natural explanation if, at the very moment, 
the disciples were in a perilous situation. All the elements of this discourse are thus 
in perfect keeping with the historical frame in which it is set by Luke. And this 
frame is only an invention of the evangelist ! 

\ 9. The Position of Man and of the Believer in relation to this World's Goods : 
12 : 13-59. — The occasion of this new discourse is supplied by an unexpected eveDt, 
and without any relation to what had just happened. This piece embraces : 1st. A 
historical introduction (vers. 13, 14) ; 2d. A discourse addressed by Jesus to the mul- 
titude on the value of earthly goods to man in general (vers. 15-21) ; 3d A discourse, 
which He addresses specially to the disciples, on the position which their new faith 
gives them in respect of those goods (vers. 22-40) ; 4th. A still more special applica- 
tion of the same truth to the apostles (vers. 41-53) ; 5th. In closing, Jesus returns to 
the people, and gives them a last warning, based on the threatening character of pres- 
ent circumstances (vers. 54-59). 

1st. The Occasion : vers. 13 and 14.* — A man in the crowd profits by a moment of 
silence to submit a matter to Jesus which lies heavily on his heart, and which proba- 
bly brought him to the Lord's presence. According to the civil law of the Jews, the 
eldest brother received a double portion of the inheritance, burdened with the obliga- 
tion of supporting his mother and unmarried sisters. As to the younger members, it 
would appear from the parable of the prodigal son that the single share of the prop- 
erty which accrued to them was sometimes paid in money. This man was perhaps 
one of those younger members, who was not satisfied with the sum allotted to him, 
or who, after having spent it, still claimed, under some pretext or other, a part of the 
patrimony. As on other similar occasions (the woman taken in adultery), Jesus abso- 
lutely refuses to go out of His purely spiritual domain, or to do anything which 
might give Him the appearance of wishing to put Himself in the place of the powers 
that be. The answer to the rfe, who ? is this : neither God nor men. The difference 
between the judge and the uepiarrji, him who divides, is that the first decides the 
point of law, and the second sees the sentence executed. The object of Jesus in this 
journey being to take advantage of all the providential circumstances which could 
not fail to arise, in order to instruct the people and His disciples, He immediately 
uses this to bring before the differerit classes of His hearers those solemn truths which 
are called forth in His mind by the unexpected event. 

Holtzmann is obliged to acknowledge the reality of the fact mentioned in the in- 
troduction. He therefore alleges 1hat in this special case the common source of Mat- 
thew and Luke contained a historical preface, and that the latter has preserved it to 
us, such as it was. We accept for Luke the homage rendered in this case to his 
fidelity. But, 1st. With what right can it be pretended that we have here something 
exceptional ? 2d. How can it be alleged that the occasion of the following discourse 
was expressly indicated in the Logia, and that, nevertheless, in the face of this pre- 
cise datum, the author of the first Gospel allowed himself to distribute the discourse 
as follows : two fragments (vers. 22-31, and 33, 34) in the Sermon on the Mount 
(Matt. 6 : 25-33, 19-21) ; another fragment (vers. 51-53) in the installation discourse 

* Ver. 14. I*. B. D. L. some Mnn. read kplttjv instead of ditcacTjjv (perhaps follow- 
ing Acts 7 i 27, 35, Tischendorf). 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 343 

to the Twelve (Matt. 10 : 34-36) ; finally, various passages in the great eschatological 
discourse (Matt. 24 and 25) ? Weizsacker feels the impossibility of such a procedure. 
According to him, Matthew has preserved to us the form of the discourse exactly as 
it appeared in the Logia. But what does Luke in his turn do ? Drawing from those 
great discourses of the Logia the materials which suit him, he forms a new one, 
purely fanciful, at the head of which he sets as the origin a historical anecdote of his 
own invention ! In what respect is this procedure better than that which Holtzmann 
ascribes to Matthew ? Such are the psychological monstrosities in opposite directions 
to which men are reduced by the hypothesis of a common document. 

2d. To the People: vers. 15-21.* The Rich Fool. — IIpos avrovs ("He said unto 
them"), ver. 15, stands in opposition to His disciples, ver. 22. This slight detail con- 
firms the exactness of Luke, for faith is nowhere supposed in those to whom the 
warning, vers. 15-21, is addressed. The two imperatives take heed and beware might 
be regarded as expressing only one idea • " Have your eyes fully open to this enemy, 
avarice ;" but they may be translated thus : " Take heed [to this man] and beware." 
Jesus would set him as an example before the assembled people. The Greek term, 
which we translate by covetousness, denotes the desire of having, much more than 
that of keeping what we have. But the second is included in the first. Both rest on 
a superstitious confidence in worldly goods, which are instinctively identified with 
happiness. But to enjoy money there is a condition, viz., life, and this condition is 
not guaranteed by money. Tlepiooevev, the surplus of what one has beyond what he 
needs. The prep, h may be paraphrased by though or because: " Though he has or 
because he has superabundance, he has not for all that assurance of life." The two 
senses come nearly to the same. We should probably read ttdariq, all covetousness, 
instead of r^s, covetousness in general : the desire of having in every shape. 

Ver. 16. The term parable may signify an example as well as an image ; when 
the example is fictitious it is invented as an image of the abstract truth. This rich 
farmer has a superabundance of goods sufficient for years ; but all in vain, his super- 
fluity cannot guarantee his life even till to-morrow. He speaks to his soul (^Cj)» 
the seat of his affections, as if it belonged to him (" my soul ;" comp. the four fiov, 
vers. 17 and 18) ; and yet he is about to learn that this soul itself is only lent him. 
The words : " God said unto him," express more than a decree ; they imply a warn- 
ing which he hears inwardly before dying. The subject of a cutovciv (the present 
designates the immediate future) is neither murderers nor angels ; it is the indefinite 
pron. on, they, according to a very common Aramaic form ; comp. ver. 48 and 14 : 35 
This night is the antithesis of many years, as required is that of the expression, " my 
soul."' 

Ver. 21. Application of the Parable. The phrase laying up treasure for himself 'is 
sufficiently explained by ver. 19. Rich toward God might signify, rich in spiritual 
goods. But the prep, els, in relation to, is unfavorable to this meaning. It is better 
to take it in the sense of laying up a treasure in the presence of God, in the sense of 
the saying, He who giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord. To become God's creditor, 
is to have a treasure in God ; comp. vers. 33, 34. 

Sd. To flie Disciples : vers. 22-40.— Disengagement from earthly goods. The fol- 

* Ver. 15. 13 Mjj. 40 Mnn. Syr. It. Vg., naotic instead of ttjc, which the T. R. 
reads with 9 Byz. anbl the Mnn. 7 Mjj. (Byz.) 60 Mnn., avru instead of avrov after 
Co??. The mss. are divided between avrov (T. R) and avra after vnapxovruv. Ver. 
18. ». D. some Mnn. Syr cur . ItP leri i ue , omit /cat ja ayaBa fiov. Ver. 20. 13 Mjj. (Alex.) 
several Mnn, , a<ppwv instead of a<f>pov. 



34A COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

lowing exhortations suppose faith. The believer should renounce the pursuit of 
earthly goods : 1. From a feeling of entire confidence as to this life in his heavenly 
Father (vers. 22-34) ; 2. From his preoccupation with spiritual goods, after which 
exclusively he aspires, and because he is awaiting the return of the Master to whom 
he has given himself (vers. 35-40). 

Vers. 22-24.* Disengagement as resulting from confidence in the omnipotence 
and fatherly goodness of God. " And He said unto His disciples, Therefore I say 
unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat ; neither for the body, 
what ye shall put on. 23. The life is more than meat, and the body is more than rai- 
ment. 24. Consider the ravens : for they neither sow nor reap ; which neither have 
storehouse nor barn ; and God feedeth them : how much more are ye better than the 
fowls?" The words unto His Disciples, ver. 22, are the key of this discourse ; it is 
only to believers that Jesus can speak as He proceeds to do. Not only should the 
believer not aim at possessing superabundance, he should not even disquiet himself 
about the necessaries of life. Of the family of God (ver. 34), the disciples of Jesus 
may reckon on the tender care of this heavenly Master in whose service they are 
working, and that in respect of food as well as clothing. Therefore : because this 
false confidence in riches is folly. Ver. 22 formally states the precept ; ver. 23 gives 
its logical proof ; ver. 24 illustrates it by an example taken from nature. The logical 
proof rests on an argument d fortiori : He who gave the more (the life, the body), 
will yet more certainly give the less (the nourishment of the life, the clothing of the 
body). In the example borrowed from nature, it is important to mark how all the 
figures employed — sowing, reaping, storehouse, barn — are connected with the parable 
of the foolish rich man. All those labors, all those provisions, in the midst of which 
the rich man died, the ravens know nothing of them ; and yet they live ! The will 
of God is thus a surer guarantee of existence than the possession of superabundance. 
In the Sermon on the Mount, where Matthew has those sayings, they occur apart 
from any connection with the parable of the' foolish rich man, of whom there is no 
mention whatever. Again, a flower torn from its stalk (see on Luke 11 : 5-10). It is 
certainly not Luke who has cleverly imagined the striking connection between this 
example and the preceding parable. It must therefore have existed in his sources. 
But if those sources were the same as those of Matthew, the latter must then have had 
such gross unskilfulness as to break a connection like this ! In the last words, the 
adverb \iaXkov, joined to SiaQepetv, which by itself signifies to be better, is a pleonasm 
having the meaning : to surpass in the highest degree. In contrast with divine 
power, Jesus sets human powerlessness, as proved by the sudden death of the rich 
man, which completes the proof of the folly of earthly cares. 

Vers. 25-28. f " Which of you, with taking thought, can add to his stature one 
cubit ? 26. If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye 
thought for l^ie rest ? 27. Consider the lilies how they grow : they toil not, they 
spin not ; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like 
one of these. 28. If then God so clothe the grass, which is to-day in the field, and to 
morrow is cast into the oven ; how much more you, O ye of little faith ?" Ver. 25 

* Ver. 22. &. A. B. D. L. Q. 10 Mnn. ItP le "iue ) om it V[l(t> v after ipvxv. Ver. 23. 
7 Mjj. 25 Mnn. Syr. It ali< i. add yap after ??. 

\ Ver. 25. &. B. D. lt ali< i. omit eva after mjxyv. Ver. 26. &. B. L. Q. T. some 
Mnn., ovde instead of owe. Ver. 27. D. Syr cur . has 7r<jf owe vqQei ovre vtyatvei instead 
of 7tcjS avgavei ov /coina ov6e vrjBei. Ver. 28. B. D. L. T., afztyu&i instead of aiupievvvai. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. ' 345 

expresses in a general way the idea of the inefficacy of human cares. Mspi/ivuv, par- 
ticiple present : by means of disquieting one's self. TXhutia might refer to age ; we 
should then require to take nfjxvg, cubit, in a figurative sense (Ps. 39 :6). But the 
word seems to us to be connected with what is said about the growth of plants, 
which is sometimes so rapid ; it is therefore more natural to give rfMnia its ordinary 
sense of stature, n^us, cubit, thus preserves its literal meaning. Plants which give 
. themselves no care, yet make enormous increase, while ye by your anxieties do not 
in the least hasten your growth. Vers. 25, 26 correspond to ver. 23. Your anxieties 
will not procure for you an increase of stature ; how much less advantages of higher 
value ! The example which follows, taken from nature (ver. 27), corresponds with 
that of ver. 24. After reading the delicious piece of M. F. Bo vet (" Voyage en 
Terre-Sainte, " p. 383), it is hard to give up the idea that by the lily of the fields we are 
to understand the beautiful red anemone (anemone coronaria) with which the mead- 
ows throughout all Palestine are enamelled. Yet Jesus may possibly mean either the 
magnificent white lily (lilium candidum), or the splendid red lily (lilium rubrum), 
which are found, though more rarely, in that country (Winer, Lexicon, ad h. v.). 
Prom want of wood, ovens in the East are fed with herbs. 

Vers. 29-34.* The Application. — " And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye 
shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. 30. For all these things do the nations 
of the world seek after : and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. 
31. But rather seek ye the kingdom of God ; and all these things shall be added unto 
you. 32. Fear not, little flock ; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the 
kingdom. 33. Sell that ye have, aud give alms ; provide yourselves bags which wax 
not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, 
neither moth corrupteth. 34. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be 
also." With the cares which He leaves to the men of this world (vers. 29, 30) Jesus 
contrasts the care which He recommends to His own (vers. 31-34). f Kal (ver. 29) : 
and consequently. "Y/ielt; , ye, might contrast men with the lower creatures cited as 
examples, the ravens, the lilies. But according to ver. 30, this pronoun rather serves 
to distinguish the disciples from men who have no faith, from the nations of this 
world. Jesus thus designates not only the heathen — in that case -He would have said 
simply the nations — but also the Jews, who, by refusing to enter into the fiacikda, 
condemn themselves to become a people of this world like the rest, and remain out- 
side of the true people of God, to whom Jesus is here speaking (the little flock, ver. 32). 

Tl2,7jv (ver. 31) : " All this false seeking swept away, there remains only one which 
is worthy of you." " The kingdom of God," as always : that state, first internal, 
then social, in which the human will is nothing but the free agent of the divine will. 
All these things, to wit, food and clothing, shall be given over and above the kingdom 
which ye seek exclusively, as earthly blessings were given to the young Solomon 
over and above the wisdom which alone he had asked. Kal : and on this single con- 
dition. Tiavra was easily omitted after ravra by a mistake of sight (confusion of the 
two to). Bleek acknowledges that this passage is more suitably put in Luke than by 
Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount, .w here the entire piece on confidence is only 

* Ver. 29. The mss. are divided between y n (T. R.) and mi n (Alex.). Ver. 31. 
5*. B. D. L. It ali( i., avrov instead of rov Qeov (which is perhaps taken from Matthew). 
10 Mjj. 30 Mnn^ Syr cur . It ali i. omit iravra 

\ Keim, vol. ii. p. 27. 



346 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

very indirectly connected with the charge of covetousness addressed to the Phari- 



sees. 



The expression little flock, ver. 32, corresponds with the critical position of the 
small group of disciples in the midst of undecided or hostile myriads, ver. 1 ; it re- 
calls the you, my friends, ver. 4. Jesus here gives consolation to the -believer for 
times when the.iuterests of the kingdom of God place him in a position of earthly 
privation (Gess). The a fortiori argument of ver. 23 is here, ver. 32, reproduced in a 
higher sphere : " Will not He who has provided with so much love for your eternal 
well-being provide more certainly still for your poor earthly maintenance ?" What 
faithful servant would have to disquiet himself about his. food in the house of the 
master for whom he works day and night ? And when this master is a Father ! It 
was from experience that Jesus spoke in such a style. 

From the duty of being unconcerned about the acquisition of riches, Jesus passes, 
ver 33 to that of their wise employment when they are possessed. This precept 
constitutes, according to De Wette, the great heresy of Luke, or, according to Keim, 
that of his Ebionite document— salvation by the meritorious virtue of voluntary pov- 
erty and almsgiving. But let us first remark that we have here to do with believers, 
who as such already possess the kingdom (ver. 32), and do not require to merit it. 
Then, when Jesus says sell, give . . . is it a commandment ? Is it not the sense 
rather : " Have no fear ; only do so ! If you do, you will find it again." Finally, 
for a member of the society of believers at this period, was not the administration of 
earthly property a really difficult thing ? Was not every disciple more or less in the 
position of Jesus Himself, who, having once begun His ministry, had required to 
break off His trade as a carpenter ? The giving away of earthly goods is here pre- 
sented, first as a means of personal emancipation, that the giver might be able to ac- 
company Jesus, and become one of the instruments of His work ; then as a gladsome 
liberality proceeding from love, and fitted to enrich our heaven eternally. In all this 
there is nothing peculiar to Luke, nor to his alleged Ebionite document. Comp. in 
respect of the first aspect, the history of the rich young man (in the three Syn.) ; and, 
in respect to the second, the word of Jesus in Matthew : " Inasmuch as ye have done 
it unto one of the. least ... ye have done it unto me," and the whole of the 
judgment scene (Matt. 25 : 31-46). 

It must not be forgotten that the kingdom of God at this period was identified 
with the person of Jesus, and the society of disciples who accompanied Him. 
To follow Jesus (literally) in His peregrinations was the only way of possessing this 
treasure, and of becoming fit to spread it in consequence. Then, as we have seen, it 
was an army not merely of believers, but of evangelists, that Jesus was now laboring 
to form. If they had remained attached to the soil of their earthly property, they 
would have been incapable of following and serving Him without looking backward 
(9 : 62). The essential character of such a precept alone is permanent. The form in 
which Jesus presented it arose from the present condition of the kingdom of God. 
The mode of fulfilling it varies. There are times when, to disentangle himself and 
practise Christian love, the believer must give up everything ; there are other times 
when, to secure real freedom and be the better able to give„he must keep and admin- 
ister. ' When Paul thus expressed the Christian duty, possessing as though they pos- 
sessed not (1 Cor. 7 : 29), it is evident that all he had in view was the disengaged and 
charitable spirit commended by Jesus, and that he modified the transient form which 
this precept had assumed. There is in the expressions of Jesus a sort of enthusiasm 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 347 

of disdain for those earthly treasures in which the natural man places his happiness : 
" Get rid of those goods ; by giving them away, change them into heavenly treas- 
ures, and ye shall have made a good bargain !" This is the being* rich toward God 
(ver. 21). Every gift made by human love constitutes in the eyes of God the imper- 
sonation of love, a debt payable in heaven. Love regards love with affection, and 
will find means to requite it. 

By this mode of acting, the believer finds that he has a treasure in heaven. Now 
-it is a law of psychology (ver. 34) that the heart follows the treasure ; so, your treas- 
ure once put in God, your heart will rise unceasingly toward Him. This new atti- 
tude of the believer, who lives here below with the eye of his heart turned heaven- 
ward, is what Jesus describes in the sequel. The heart, once set free from its earthly 
burden, will live on the new attachment to which it is given up, and on the expecta- 
tion with which it is thus inspired (vers. 35-38). 

Yers. 35-38.* The Parable of the Master returning to his House. — " Let your loins 
be girded about, and your lights burning ; 36, And ye yourselves like unto men that 
wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding ; that, when he cometh 
and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. 37, Blessed are those servants 
whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching : verily 1 say unto you, that he 
shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve 
them. 38. And if he shajl come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, 
and find them so, blessed are those servants " Ver, 35. The long Oriental robe 
requires to be taken up, and 'the skirt fastened under the girdle, to allow freedom in 
walking (17 : 8). If it is night, it is further required that one have a lighted lamp in 
his hand, to walk quickly and surely to his destination. Those two figures are so 
thoroughly in keeping with the position of the servant spoken of in the following 
verses that we have no doubt about ver. 35 forming part of the parable, vers. 36-38. 
The faithful believer is described as a servant waiting over night for the arrival of 
his master who is returning from a journey. That there may be no delay in opening 
the door when he shall knock, he keeps himself awake, up and ready to run. The 
lighted lamp is at his hand ; he has even food ready against the time of his return. 
And it matters not though the return is delayed, delayed even to the morning ; he 
does not yield to fatigue, but persists in his waiting attitude. T/zeft, ye (ver. 36), your 
whole person, in opposition to the lighted lamps and girded loins. The word ydfioi, 
marriage, might here have the sense of banquet, which it sometimes has (Esth. 2 : 18 ; 
9 : 22 ; and perhaps Luke 14 : 8). It is more natural to keep the ordinary sense, only 
observing that the marriage in question is not that of the master himself, but a 
friend's, in which he is taking part. What does the master do when received 
in this way ? Moved by such fidelity, instead of seating himself at the table 
prepared, he causes his devoted servants to seat themselves, and, girding 
himself as they were girded, he approaches them (napelduv) to serve them, *and 
presents them with the food which they have prepared for him. And the longer 
delayed his arrival is, the livelier is his gratitude, the greater are the marks of his sat- 
isfaction. Among the ancient Jews, the night had only three divisions (Judg. 7 : 19) ; 

* Ver. 38. Instead of nai eav eWrj ev rrj devrepa QvXanT], nat ev rrj rpirr\ (pvAaKij eWrj, 
nai evpr) ovruS, &. B. L. T w . X. some Mnn. Syr sch It ali( *. read nav ev rrj devrepa nav ev 
rr\ rpirrj fyvTianrj eXBrj nai evpij ovroS. D. lt ali( *. Marcion, nai eav e'XBrj rrj eoirepivj] 
(pvvaKrj nai evprjcet ovrog Trotrjaac (sic facientes) nai eav rrj devrepa /cat rrj rpirrj. & a . B. D. 
L. Syr cur . omit oi dovAoi before eneivoL ; &* lt ali i. Ir. omit ol SovTloi eneivoi. 



348 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

later, probably after the Roman subjugation, four were admitted : from 6 to 9, from 
9 to midnight, from midnight to 3,. and from 3 to 6 o'clock. If, as cannot be doubted, 
the master's return represents the Parousia, this parable teaches that that event may 
be long delayed — much longer than any one even of the disciples imagined— and that 
this delay will be the means of testing their fidelity. The same thought reappears in 
the parable of the ten virgins (Matt. 25 : 5), " "While the bridegroom tarried ;" and 
again in that of the talents (25 : 19), " After a long time, the lord of those servants 
cometh." Jesus thus proclaimed His return, but not the immediateness of that 
return. One hardly dares to apply the promise included in this parable : The Lord in 
His glory serving him who has faithfully waited for and served Him here below I 
There is an apparent contradiction of Luke 17 : 7-9. But in the latter passage Jesus 
is expressing the feeling which should animate the servant : " I am, after all that I 
have done, but an unprofitable servant." Jesus wishes, in opposition to pharisaism, 
to sweep away the legal idea of merit. Here He is describing the feeling of the 
Master himself ; we are in the sphere of love both on the side of the servant and of 
the master. The variations of ver. 38 do not affect its general meaning. 

The Parousia is a sweet and glorious event to the servants of Jesus (vers. 35-38). 
But at the same time it is solemn and awful : for He who returns is not only a well- 
beloved Master, who comes to requite everything which has been given for Him ; He 
is also a thief who takes away everything which should not have been kept. 

Vers. 39 and 40.* Parable of the Thief.—' 1 And this ye Know, that if the goodman 
of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, 
and not have suffered his house to be broken through. 40. Be ye therefore ready 
also; for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not." TivcJaKere, ye 
know, should be taken as indie, rather than as imper. ; this knowledge is the basis of 
the exhortation, ver. 40. The application should be made as follows : If the hour of 
attack were known, men would not fail to hold themselves ready against that hour ; and 
therefore when it is not known, as in this case, the only way is to be always ready. 
The real place of this saying is possibly that given to it by Matthew (24 : 42-44) in 
the eschatological discourses ; Mark is here at one with him. Of all the sayings of 
Jesus, there is not one whose influence has made itself more felt in the writings of 
the N. T. than this (1 Thess. 5 : 1, 2 ; 2 Pet. 3 : 10 ; Rev. 3 : 3, 16 ; 15) ; it had 
awakened a deep echo in the heart of the disciples. It indicates the real meaning of 
waiting for the second advent of Christ. The Church has not the task of fixing 
beforehand that unknown and unknowable time ; she has nothing else to do, in virtue 
of her very ignorance, from which she ought not to wish to escape, than to remain 
invariably on the watch. This attitude is her security, her life, the principle of her 
virgin purity. This duty of watching evidently embraces both the disengagement 
and the attachment which are commanded in this discourse. 

4th. To tJie Apostles : vers. 41-53. — Up till now, Jesus had been speaking to all 
believers ; from this point, on occasion of a question put by Peter, He addresses the 
apostles in particular, and reminds them of the special responsibility which attaches 
to them in the prospect of their Master's return (vers. 41-48) ; then He gives vent to 
the emotions which fill His heart in view of the moral revolution which He is about 
to work on the earth (vers. 49-53). 

* Ver. 39. &. D. Syr cur . It ali< i. omit eypijyopijoev av kcu. Ver. 40. &. B. L. Q. some 
Mnn. It. omit ow after vtieis. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 349 

Vers. 41-48.* The Parable of the Two Stewards. — The magnificence of the 
promise, ver. 87, has struck Peter ; he asks himself if such a recompense is intended 
for all the* subjects of the Messiah, or ought not rather to be restricted to those who 
shall play the chief part in His kingdom. If that is the meaning of his question, ver. 
41, it relates not to the parable of the thief (vers. 89, 40), but to that of the Master's 
return (vers. 85-38), which would confirm the impression that vers. 80 and 40 are an 
interpolation in this disccurse, to be ascribed either to Luke or to the document from 
which he borrows. The question of Peter recalls one put by the same apostle, Matt. 
19 : 27, which, so far as the sense goes, is exactly similar. Jesus continues His 
teaching as if He took no account (apa, then) of Peter's question ; but in reality He 
gives such a turn to the warning which follows about watchfulness, that it includes 
the precise answer to the question. For a similar f orm.comp. 19 : 25, 26, John 14 : 21-28, 
et al. All shall be recompensed for their fidelity, but those more magnificently 
than the rest who have been set to watch over their brethren in the Master's absence 
(vers. 42-44) ; as, on the contrary, he who has been in this higher position and 
neglected his duty, shall be punished much more severely than the servants of a less 
exalted class (vers. 45-46). Finally, vers. 47. 48, the general principle on wllich this 
judgment of the Church proceeds. 

Jesus gives an interrogative form to the indirect answer which He makes to 
Peter's question : " Who then is the steward ... ?" Why this style of expres- 
sion ? De Wette thinks that Jesus speaks as if He were seeking with emotion among 
His own for this devoted servant. Bleek finds again here the form observed, 11 : 5-8 : 
" Who is the steward who, if his master comes to find him, shall not be estab- 
lished by him ... ?" Neither of the explanations is very natural. Jesus puts 
a real question ; He invites Peter to seek that steward (it ought to be himself and 
every apostle). Matthew, by preserving (24 : 45-51) the interrogative form, while 
omitting Peter's question, which gave rise to it, supplies a remarkable testimony to 
the fidelity of Luke's narrative. The stewards, although slaves (ver. 45), were ser- 
vants of a higher rank. The Oepaneia is the general body of domestics, the famulitium 
of the Latins. This term corresponds to the all in Peter's question, as the person of 
the ruler to the us in the same question. The fut. Karaarriaei, shall make, seems to in- 
dicate that the Church shall not be so constituted till after the departure of the Mas- 
ter. Kaipos, the due season denotes the time fixed for the weekly or daily distribu- 
tion ; ciTOfierpcov, their rations. There is a difference between the recompense 
promised, ver. 44, to the faithful steward and that which was pledged, ver. 
37, to the watchful servant. The latter was of a more inward character ; it 
was the expression of the Master's personal attachment to the faithful ser- 
vant who had personally bestowed his care upon him. The former is more 
glorious ; it is a sort of official recompense for services rendered to the house : 
the matter in question is a high government in the kingdom of glory, in recom- 
pense for labors to which the faithful servant has devoted himself in an influen- 
tial position during the economy of grace. This relation is indicated by the corre- 
spondence of the two KaraaTTJaec, vers. 42 and 44. This saying seems to assume that 
the apostolate will be perpetuated till the return of Christ ; and the figure employed 

* Ver. 42. 13 Mjj. several Mnn. read o instead of nai before ypovipos. &* T w . 
jtpierique^ \g, read, instead of KaracrrjceL, KareoTTjoev (taken from Matthew). D. L. 
Q. X. omit rov before Sidovai, Ver. 47. L. Syr. ItP leri< i ue , omit /xrjfie irotTiaag. &. B. 
T., rj instead of fi^de. 



350 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

does indisputably prove that there will subsist in the Church to the very end a 
ministry of the word established by Christ. Of this the apostles were so well aware, 
that when they were themselves leaving the earth, they took care to establish minis- 
ters of the word to fill their places in the Church. This ministry was a continuation, 
if not of their whole office, at least of one of its most indispensable functions, that of 
which Jesus speaks in our parable— the regular distribution of spiritual nourishment 
to the flock ; comp. the Pastoral Epistles and 1 Pet. 5. The theory which makes the 
pastorate emanate from the Church as its representative is therefore not biblical ; the 
office is rather an emanation from the apostolate, and thus mediately an institution of 
Jesus Himself. Comp. Eph. 4 : 11 : "He gave some as . . . pastors and teach- 
ers." It is Jesus who will have this ministry, who has established it by His manda- 
tories, who procures for His Church in every age those who have a mission to fill it, 
and who endows them for that end., Hence their weightier responsibility. 

Vers. 45, 46 represent an apostle or an unfaithful minister under the image of an 
unprincipled steward. The condition of fidelity being the constant watching for the 
Master's return, this servant, to set himself more at his ease in his unfaithfulness, 
puts the thought of that moment far off. So the minister of Jesus does, who, in 
place of watching for the Parousia, substitutes the idea of indefinite progress.* 
What will become of his practical fidelity, since it is the constant watching for the 
Lord which should be its support ? Beating, eating, and drinking are figures, like the 
regular and conscientious distribution (ver. 42). The ecclesiastical functionaries de- 
scribed in this piece are those who, instead of dividing the word of Christ to the 
• Church, impose on it their own, who tyrannize over souls instead of tending them, 
and show themselves so much the more jealous of their rights the more negligently 
they discharge their duties. Aixoro/xslv, strictly, to cleave in two, denotes a punish- 
ment which was really used among the nations of antiquity (Egyptians, Chaldeans, 
Greeks, Romans ; comp. also 2 Sam. 12 : 31 ; 1 Chron. 20 : 3 ; Heb. 11 : 37). But 
this literal meaning does not suit here, since we still hear of a position which this ser- 
vant is to receive ; at least if we do not admit with Bleek that in these last words 
Jesus passes from the figure to the application. Is it not more natural, even though 
we cannot cite examples of the usage, to understand the word in the sense of the 
Latin expression, flageUis discindere, to scourge the back with a rod (the : shall be beat- 
en with many stripes, ver. 47) ? 

The portion in question after this terrible punishment is imprisonment, or even the 
extreme penalty of the law — the cross, for example, which was always preceded by 
scourging. The word amaruv, '.'with the unbelievers," might support the explana- 
tion given by Bleek ; but though the application pierces the veil of the parable, the J 
strict sense is not altogether set aside : " those who cannot be trusted," strangers to ■ 
the house. Matthew says : tlie hypocrites, false friends (the Pharisees). A faithless 
apostle will be no better treated than an adversary. To have one's portion with is a 
Hebraistic and Greek expression, which signifies to share the lot of . . . 

Vers. 47 and 48. Tlie Principle. — " And that servant which knew his lord's will, 
and prepared nothing, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many 
stripes. 48. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be 
beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be 
required ; and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more." 

* See on vv. 18, 19, closing paragraph.— J. H. 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 351 

Along with the superiority of position described above, the apostles had received a 
superior degree of knowledge ; it is to this new advantage that ver. 47a refers. It is 
connected with the preceding ; for the higher the servant is placed by his master, the 
fuller are the instructions he receives from him. The same manner of judging will 
be extended to this other kind of superiority. Ostervald, understanding kavrbv with 
(at) iroLfidcaS, translates, "who prepared not himself.'* This ellipsis is inadmissible. 
The meaning is, who prepared not [what was necessary to receive his master accord- 
ing to his wishes]. It is the antithesis of vers. 35-37. The servant whom the master 
has not initiated so specially into his intentions is nevertheless responsible to a certain 
extent. For he also has a certain knowledge of his will ; comp. the application of 
this same principle, Rom. 2 : 12. Ver. 486. The general maxim on which the whole 
of the preceding rests. The two parallel propositions are not wholly synonymous. 
The passive kdoQrj, was given, simply denotes an assigned position ; the middle form, 
napiSevro, men haw committed, indicates that the trust was taken by the master as his 
own interest ; the figure is that of a sum deposited. Consequently the first term is 
properly applied to the apostolic commission, and to the authority with which it is ac- 
companied ; the second, to the higher light granted to the apostles. What is claimed 
of each is not fruits which do not depend on the laborer, but devotedness to work. 
Meyer thinks that the more signifies " more than had been committed to him." It is 
more natural to understand : more than will be exacted from others who have received 
less. On the subject of the verbs TrapiBevro and aiTTjoovotv , see ver. 20. 

Mark has preserved (13 : 37), at the close of the parable of the porter, which he 
alone has, but which refers to the same duty of watchfulness as the two preceding 
parables in Luke, this final exhortation : ' ' What I say unto you, 1 say unto all, 
Watch." This word corresponds in a striking manner to the meaning of Jesus' an- 
swer to Peter in Luke : " All should watch, for all shall share in the Master's per- 
sonal requital (ver. 37) ; but very specially (irepiooorepov, ver. 48) ye, my apostles, w T ho 
have to expect either a greater recompense or a severer punishment." On this sup- 
position, Luke relates the question of Peter and the indirect answer of Jesus ; Mark, 
a word of Jesus which belonged to His direct answer. How is the relation between 
the two to be explained ? Holtzmann thinks that Luke of himself imagined the ques- 
tion of Peter, founding on this last word of Jesus in Mark. He cannot help confess- 
ing, further, that this interpolation has been very skilfully managed by Luke. 
Such procedure, in reality, would be as ingenious as arbitrary ; it is inadmissible. 
The account of Luke, besides, finds a confirmation in the text of Matthew, in which 
the interrogative form of the answer of Jesus is preserved exactly as we find it in 
Luke, and that though Matthew has omitted Peter's question, which alone explains 
this form. Weizsacker supposes inversely that the question of Peter in Luke was 
borrowed by the latter from the interrogative form of the saying of Jesus in Matt. 
24 : 45 : " Who is then the faithful servant ... ?" But Mark's account stands 
to defend that of Luke against this new r accusation. For, as ' we have seen, the last 
words of the discourse in Mark had no meaning except in reference to Peter's ques- 
tion reported by Luke. Luke's form cannot be derived from Mark without protest 
from Matthew, nor from Matthew without Mark in his turn protesting. We have 
evidently, as it were, the pieces of a wheelwork taken down ; each evangelist has 
faithfully preserved to us those of them which an incomplete tradition had trans- 
mitted to him. Applied to a written document, this dividing would form a real 
mutilation ; as the result of a circulating tradition, it admits of easy explanation. 

After having thus followed the natural course of the conversation, Jesus returns 
to the thought from which it had started, the vanity of earthly goods. He shows 
how this truth directly applies to the present situation (vers. 49-53). 



352 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

Vers. 49 and 50.* The Character of the Immediate Future.—" I am come to send 
fire on the earth ; and what will 1 if it be already kindled ? 50. But 1 have a bap- 
tism to be baptized with ; and how am 1 straitened till it be accomplished !" " Is it 
a time," said Elisha to the unfaithful Gehazi, " to receive lands and cattle when the 
hand of God is upon Israel," that is to say, when Shalmaneser is at the gates of 
Samaria ? Is it a time for the believer to give himself up to the peaceable enjoyment 
of earthly goods when the great struggle is beginning ? The Church is about to be 
born ; Israel is about to perish, and the Holy Land to be given over to the Gentiles. 
Such is the connection, too moving to be expressed by a logical particle, which is 
implied by the remarkable asyndeton between vers. 48 and 49. , Iivp {ia/ikeiv, strictly, 
to throw a firebrand. Jesus feels that His presence is for the earth the brand which is 
to set everything on fire. " Every fruitful thing," says M. Renan, " is rich in wars." 
Jesus understood the fruitfulness of His work. The expression 1 am come, which 
Jesus frequently uses in the Syn., finds its only natural explanation in His lips in the 
consciousness which He had of His pre-existence. The fire in question here is not 
the fire of the Holy Spirit, as some of the Fathers thought. The sequel proves 
that it is the spiritual excitement produced in opposite directions by the coming of 
Jesus, whence will result the dta/xepicpos, the division, described from ver. 51 onward. 
Two humanities will henceforth be in conflict within the bosom of every nation, un- 
der every roof : this thought profoundly moves the heart of the Prince of peace. 
Hence the broken style of the following words. The el may be taken in the sense of 
that, which it often has, and ri in the sense of how : " How I wish that this fire were 
already burning !" (Olshausen, De Wette, Bleek). But this meaning of the two 
words el and. ri, and especially of the second, is not very natural. Accordingly Gro- 
tius, Meyer, etc., have been led to admit two propositions — the one forming a ques- 
tion, the other the answer : " And what will I ? Oh, that it only were already kin- 
dled !" The sense is radically the same. But the second proposition would come 
too abruptly as an answer to the preceding. Ewald recurs to the idea of a single sen- 
tence, only he seeks to give to Qeau a meaning which better justifies the use of el : 
" And of what have I to complain if it be already kindled ?" This sense does not 
differ much from that which appears to us the most natural : " What have I more to 
seek, since it is already kindled V' This saying expresses a mournful satisfaction 
with the fact that this inevitable rending of liumanit}^ is already beginning, as proved 
by the event recorded vers. 1-12. Jesus submits to bring in war where He wished 
to establish peace. But it must be ; it is His mission : " I am come to . . ." 

Meantime this fire, which is already kindled, is far yet from bursting into a flame ; 
in order to that there is a condition to be fulfilled, the thought of which weighs 
heavily on the heart of Jesus : there needs the fact which, by manifesting the deadly 
antagonism between the world and God, shall produce the division of which Jesus 
speaks between man and man ; there needs the cross. Without the cross, the confla- 
gration lighted on the earth by the presence of Jesus would very soon be extin- 
guished, and the world would speedily fall back to its undisturbed level ; hence ver. 
50. The de is adversative : " But though the fire is already kindled, it needs, in 
order that it may blaze forth, that . . ." The baptism in question here is the 
same as that of which Jesus speaks, Matt. 20 : 22 (at least if the expressions analo- 

* Ver. 49. Instead of eis, which the T. R reads with 11 Mjj. (Byz.) and the 
Mnn., 10 Mjj. (Alex.) 40 Mnn. read em. Ver. 50. The mss. are divided between w 

(T. R.) and orov (Alex.). 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 353 

gous to these are authentic in that passage). Jesus certainly makes an allusion to 
His baptism at the hands of His forerunner, which included a consecration to death. 
The figure is as follows . Jesus sees Himself about to be plunged into a bath of 
flame, from which He shall come forth the torch which shall set the whole world on 
fire. The Lord expresses with perfect candor the impression of terror which is pro- 
duced in Him by the necessity of going through this furnace of suffering, 
IvvixeaOai, to be closely pressed (straitened), sometimes by the power of love (2 Cor. 
5 : 14) ; elsewhere, by that of conflicting desires (Phil. 1 : 23) ; here, doubtless, by 
mournful impatience to have done with a painful task. He is under pressure to 
enter into this suffering, because He is in haste to get out of it. "A prelude of 
Gethsemane, " says Gess in an admirable passage on this discourse.* Here, indeed, 
we have the first crisis of that agony of which we catch a second indication, John 
12 : 27 : " Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say?" and which is breathed 
forth in all its intensity in Gethsemane. Luke alone has preserved to us the memo- 
rial of this first* revelation of the inmost feelings of Jesus. 

After this saying, which is a sort of parenthesis drawn forth by the impression, 
produced on Him by the thought in the preceding verse, He resumes at ver. 51 the 
development of His declaration, ver. 49. 

Vers. 51-53. f The Picture of the Future Just Declared. — " Suppose ye that 1 am 
come to give peace on sarth ? 1 tell you, nay ; but division. 52. For from hence- 
forth there shall be five in one house divided; three against two, and two against 
three. 53. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father ; 
the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother , the mother- 
in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in- 
law." AoKslre, suppose ye, is no doubt aimed at the illusion with which the disciples 
flattered themselves, yet hoping for the establishment of the Messianic kingdom 
without struggles or sufferings (19 : 11). Jesus does not deny that peace should be 
the final result of His work ; but certainly He denies that it will be its immediate 
effect. The simplest solution of the phrase akV fj is to take it as an abbreviation of 
ovxi alio 7} : " Nothing else than . . ." Vers. 52 and 53 describe the fire lighted 
by Jesus. By the preaching of the disciples, the conflagration spreads ; with their 
arrival, it invades every family one after another. But " the fifth commandment 
itself must give way to a look directed to Him . . . Undoubtedly it is God who 
has formed the natural bonds between men ; but Jesus introduces a new principle, 
holier than the bond of nature, to unite men to one another" (Gess, p. 22). Even 
Holtzmann observes that the five persons indicated, ver. 52, are expressly enumera- 
ted, ver. 53 : father, son, mother, daughter, daughter-in-law. Matthew (10 : 35) 
has not preserved this delicate touch ; are we to think that Luke invented this nice 
precision, or that Matthew, finding it in the common document, has obliterated it ? 
Two suppositions equally improbable. 'Eiri indicates hostility, and with more- 
energy in the last two members, where this prep, is construed with the ace. ; proba- 
bly because between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law religious hostility is strength- 
ened by previous natural animosity. 

* Work quoted, p. 79. " We cast ourselves in contemplation into the oppressed 
soul of Jesus . . . into His Passion before the Passion" (ib.). 

f Ver. 53. &. B. D. L. T w . U. some Mnn. Vg., SiauepicQijaovrai instead of 
6tajuepiaB7jaeTat. Alex, some Mnn., Bvyarepa, p,7jTepa, instead of Bvyarpi, pvr\Tpi. 
&. B. D. L. omit avTqq. 



354 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

5t7i. To the Multitudes : vers. 54-59. — After having announced and described the 
rending, the first symptoms of which He already discerns, Jesus returns anew to the 
multitude whom He sees plunged in security and impenitence ; He points out to 
those men, so thoroughly earthly and self-satisfied, the thunderbolt which is about to 
break over their heads, and beseeches them to anticipate the explosion of the divine 
wrath. 

Yers. 54-56.* The Signs of the Times. — " And He said also to the people, When ye 
see a cloud rise out of the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower ; and so 
it is. 55. And when ye see the south wind blow, ye say, There will be heat ; and it 
cometh to pass. 56. Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the 
earth ; but how is it that ye do not discern this time ?" "EAeye 61 nai, He said also, is, 
as we have already seen (i. p. 177), the formula which Luke uses when Jesus at the 
close of a doctrinal discourse adds a last word of more gravity, which raises the 
question to its full height, and is intended to leave on the mind of the hearer an im- 
pression never to be effaced : " Finally, I have a last word to address to you. " This 
concluding idea is that of the urgency of conversion. Country people, in the matter 
of weather, plume themselves on being good prophets, and in fact their prognostics 
do not mislead them : " Ye say, ye say . . . and as ye say, it comes to pass." 
The rains in Palestine come from the Mediterranean (1 Kings 18 : 44) ; the south 
wind, on the contrary, the simoom blowing from the desert, brings drought. These 
people know it ; so their calculation is quickly made (evQeog) ; and, what is more, it 
is correct (ml yivErai, twice repeated). So it is, because all this passes in the order of 
things in which they are interested : they give themselves to discover the future in 
the present ; and as they will, they can. And this clear-sightedness with which man 
is endowed, they put not forth in the service of a higher interest ! A John the Bap- 
tist, a Jesus appear, live and die, without their concluding that a solemn hour for 
them has struck ! This contradiction in their mode of acting is what Jesus desig- 
nates by the word hypocrites. What they want, is not the eye, it is the will -to use it. 
The word naipds, the propitious time, is explained by the expression, 19 : 44, the time 
of thy visitation. AoM/uafriv, to appreciate the importance. Matt. 16' : 1-3 ought not to 
be regarded as parallel to our passage. The idea is wholly different. Only in Mat- 
thew our ver. 56 has been joined with a parable similar to that of Luke in point of 
form, and that by an association of ideas easily understood. 

Yers. 57-59. f The Urgency of Reconciliation to Ood. — "Yea, and why even of 
yourselves judge ye not what is right ? 58. (For) While thou goest with thine adver- 
sary to the magistrate, as thou art in the way give diligence that thou mayest be de- 
livered from him ; lest he hale thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the 
officer, and the officer cast thee into prison. 59. I tell thee, thou shalt not depart 
thence till thou hast paid the very last mite." A new example (H 6t icai) of what 
they would make haste to do, if their good-will equalled their intelligence. 'A^' 
kavruv, of yourselves ; same meaning as the " at once ye say" (ver, 54). It should be 
so natural to perform this duty that it ought not to be necessary to remind them of 

* Yer. 54. 6 Mjj. (Alex.) some Mnn. omit ryv. &. B. L., eiu instead of ano. 
Yer. 56. 6 Mjj. 40 Mnn. Syr. It. Yg. put rov ovpavov before ttjS yriS. &. B. L. T w ., 
ova ocdare SoKifiafeiv instead of ov doKi/ua^ere. 

f Yer. 58. Some Mjj., napaduoei instead of irapado (T. R. with 14 Mjj.) ; pahei or 
(3a?i7) instead of fiaXkri (T. R. with some Mnn.). Yer. 59. J*. B. L., ewS instead of ew5 
qv. 5 Mjj., to eaxarov instead of tov ecxarov (14 Mjj.). 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 355 

it. But, alas ! in the domain of which Jesus is speaking they are not so quick to 
draw conclusions as in that wherein they habitually move. Their finger needs to be 
put on things. To 6inalov, what is just, denotes the right step to be taken in the given 
situation — to wit, as the sequel shows, reconciliation to God by conversion. The fol- 
lowing parable (ver. 58) is presented in the form of an exhortation, because the ap- 
plication is blended with the figure. The for (ver. 58) has this force : " Why dost 
not thou act thus with God ? For it is what thou wouldst not fail to do with a 
human adversary." We must avoid translating the «s viva-yets, " when thou goest " 
(E. V.). 'Gs signifies " while thou goest ;" it is explained by the in tlie way which 
follows. It is before arriving at the tribunal, while you are on the way thither, that 
you must get reconciled to him who accuses you. Once before the judge, justice 
takes its course. The important thing, therefore, is to anticipate that fatal term. 
'Epyaciav dovvat seems to be a Latinism, operam dare. In the application, God is at 
once adversary, judge, and officer : the first by His holiness, the second by His jus- 
tice, the third by His power. Or should we understand by the creditor, God ; by the 
judge, Jesus ; by the officers, the angels (Matt. 13 : 41) ? Will it ever be possible, 
relatively to God, to pay the last mite ? Jesus does not enter into the question, which 
lies beyond the horizon of the parable. Other passages seem to prove that in His 
view this term can never be reached (Mark 9 : 42-49). There is in the whole passage, 
and especially in the I tell thee (ver. 59), the expression of a personal consciousness 
wholly free from all need of reconciliation. 

Matthew places this saying in the Sermon on the Mount (v. 25, 26) ; he applies it 
to the duty of reconciliation between men as the condition of man's reconciliation to 
God. It cannot be doubted that this saying, placed there by Matthew in virtue of a 
simple association of ideas, finds its real context in Luke, in the discourse which is 
so perfectly linked together. 

10. Conversation on two Events of the Bay : 13 : 1-9. Luke does not say that the 
following event took place immediately after the preceding, but only in a general 
way, ev avru) rib Kaipip (ver. 1), in the same circumstances. The three following say- 
ings (vers. 1-3, 4, 5, 6-9) breathe the same engagedness of mind as filled the preced- 
ing discourses. The external situation also is the same. Jesus is moving slowly on, 
taking advantage of every occasion which presents itself to direct the hearts of men 
to things above. The necessity of conversion is that of which Jesus here reminds His 
hearers ; in 12 : 54 et seq. He had rather preached its urgency. 

1st. Vers. 1-3.* The Galileans massacred by Pilate. Josephus does not mention the 
event to which the following words relate. The Galileans were somewhat restless ; 
conflicts with the Roman garrison easily arose. In the expression, mingling their blood 
with tkat of the sacrifice, there is a certain poetical emphasis which often character- 
izes popular accounts. The impf. napijaav signifies " they were there relating." 
Jesus with His piercing eye immediately discerns the prophetical significance of the 
fact. The carnage due to Pilate's sword is only the prelude to that which will soon 
be carried out by the Roman army throughout all the Holy Land, and especially in 
the temple, the last asylum of the nation. Was not all that remained of the Galilean 
people actually assembled forty years later in the temple, expiating their national im- 
penitence under the stroke of Titus ? The word likewise (ver. 3) may therefore be 

* Ver. 2. I*. B. D. L., ravra instead of roiavra. Ver. 3. The mss. are divided be- 
tween ucavrus (T. R., Byz.) and o/xoius (Alex.) A. D. M. X. r. and several Mnn., 
(xeTavorjOTjTe instead of fieravorj-e. 



356 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

taken literally. A serious, individual, and national conversion at the call of Jesus 
could alone have prevented that catastrophe. 

2d. Vers. 4, 5.* The Persons buried by the Tower of Siloam. The disaster which has 
been related recalls another to His mind, which He mentions spontaneously, and 
which He applies specially to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The aqueduct and pool 
of Siloam are situated where the valley of Tyropeon, between Sion and Moriah, opens 
into that of Jehoshaphat. Forty years later, the fall of the houses of the burning 
capital justified this warning t not less strikingly. When a disaster comes upon an in- 
dividual, there is a disposition among men to seek the cause of it in some special 
guiltiness attaching to the victim. Jesus turns His hearers back to human guilt in 
general, and their own in particular ; and from that, which to the pharisaic heart is 
an occasion of proud confidence, He derives a motive to humiliation and conversion, 
an example of what was called, 12 : 57, judging ichat is right. 

3d. Vers. 6-9 .f The Time of Grace, Here again we have the formula- eAsye 6e, 
which announces the true and final word on the situation. (See at 12 : 54.) A vine- 
yard forms an excellent soil for fruit-trees. As usually, the fig-tree represents Israel. 
God is the owner, Jesus the vine-dresser who intercedes. 'Ivari (yev^rai), To what 
end ? Kal, moreover ; not only is it useless itself, but it also renders the ground use- 
less. Bengel, Wieseler, Weizsacker find an allusion in the three years to the period 
of the ministry of Jesus which was already passed, and so draw from this parable 
chronological conclusions. Altogether without reason ; for such details ought to 
be explained by their relation to the general figure of the parable of which they form 
a part, and not by circumstances wholly foreign to the description. In the figure 
chosen by Jesus, three years are the time of a full trial, at the end of which the in- 
ference of incurable sterility may be drawn. Those three years, therefore, represent 
the time of grace granted to Israel ; and the last year, added at the request of the 
gardener, the fort} 7- years' respite between the Friday of the crucifixion and the de- 
struction of Jerusalem, which were owing to that prayer of Jesus : " Father, forgive 
them." The mss. have the two forms Korrpta, from iconpiov, and noirpiav, frum nonpla. 
The proposition kuv uev . . . is elliptical, as often in classical Greek ; we must 
understand naAtis £j££. The Alex., by placing elc to fie?Jkov before el 61 yvye, pro- 
bably wished to escape this ellipsis : " If it bear fruit, let it be for the future [live]." 
The extraordinary pains of the gardener bestowed on this sickly tree repijesent the 
marvels of love which Jesus shall display in His death and resurrection, theji at Pen- 
tecost and by means of the apostolic preaching, in order to rescue the people from 
their impenitence. This parable gives Israel to know that its life is only a respite, 
and that this respite is nearing its end. Perhaps Paul makes an allusion to this say- 
ing when he admonishes Gentile Christians, the branches of the wild olive, saying to 
them, enel Kal cv ekkotttjo-^ (Rom. 11 : 22). 

Holtzmann acknowledges the historical truth of the introduction, ver. 1. He as- 
cribes it to the Logia, like everything which he finds true in the introductions of 
Luke. But if this piece was in A., of which Matthew made use, how has he omitted 
it altogether ? 

* Ver. 4. The mss. are divided between ovtol (T. R.) and avroi (Alex). Ev before 
lepovaalrj/i is omitted by B. D. L. Z. Ver. 5. The mss. are divided between opotas 
and oaavTcoS ; between fiETavorjTe and /leTavoorjTjTE. 

f Ver. 7. &. B. D. L. T w . some Mnn. Syr cur . It. Vg. add af ov after rpia ett). Ter. 
9. 5*. B. L. T w . 2 Mnn. place ecs to jueaaov before ei 6e jujjye. 



COMMENTAKY OK ST. LUKE. 357 

11. The Progress of the Kingdom : 13 : 10-21. During this journey, as throughout 
His whole ministry, Jesus did not fail to frequent the synagogues on the Sabbath 
days. The present narrative introduces us to one of those scenes. Perhaps the 
feeling which led Luke to place it here, was that of the contrast between Israel, 
which was hasting to destruction, and the Church, which was already growing. A 
glorious deed, which tells strongly on the multitude (vers. 10-17), leads Jesus to de- 
scribe in two parables thejpower of the kingdom of God (vers. 18-21). 

1st. Vers. 10 -17.* The Healing of the palsied Woman. And first the miracle, vers. 
10-13. This woman was completely bent, and her condition was connected with a 
psychical weakness, which in turn arose from a higher cause, by which the will of 
the sufferer was bound. This state of things is described by the phrase : a spirit of 
infirmity. Jesus first of all heals the psychical malady : Ihou art loosed. A.eh>adai, 
the perfect : it is an accomplished fact. The will of the sufferer through faith 
draws from this declaration the strength which it lacked. At the same time, by the 
laying on of His hands, Jesus restores the bodily organism to the control of the 
emancipated will ; and the cure is complete. 

The conversation, vers. 14-17. It was the Sabbath. The ruler of the synagogue 
imagines that he should apply to Jesus the Rabbinical regulation for practising phy- 
sicians. Only, not daring to attack Him, he addresses his discourse to the people 
(ver. 14). QepaTzeveaSe, come to get yourselves healed. Jesus takes up the challenge. 
The plural hypocrites is certainly the true reading (comp. the plural adversaries, ver. 
17). Jesus puts on trial the whole party of whom this man is the representative. The 
severity of His apostrophe is justified by the comparison which follows (vers. 15 and 
16) between the freedom which they take with the Sabbath law, when their own in- 
terests, even the most trivial, are involved, and the extreme rigor with which they 
apply it, when the question relates to their neighbor's interests, even the gravest, as 
well as to their estimate of the conduct of Jesus. The three contrasts between ox 
(or ass) and daughter of Abraham, between stall and Satan, and between the two 
bonds, material and spiritual, to be unloosed, are obvious at a glance. The last touch : 
eighteen years, in which the profoundest pity is expressed, admirably closes the an- 
swer. 

Holtzmann thinks that what has led Luke to place this account here, is the con- 
nection between the eighteen years' infirmity (ver. 11) and the three years' sterility 
(ver. 7) ! Not content with ascribing to«Luke this first puerility, he imputes to him a 
second still greater : that which has led Luke to place at ver. 18 the parable of the 
grain of mustard seed, is that it is borrowed from the vegetable kingdom, like that of 
the fig-tree (vers. 7-9) ! ! 

This so nervous reply brings the admiration of the people to a height, and shuts 
the mouth of His adversaries. Jesus then, rising to the general idea, of which this 
deed is only a particular application, to wit, the power of the kingdom of God de- 
velops it in two parables fitted to present this truth in its two chief aspects ; the two 
are, the mustard seed (vers. 18, 19) and the leaven (vers. 20, 21). 

2d. Vers. 18-21. Ihe Tico Parables. — The kingdom of God has two kinds of 
power : the power of extension, by which it gradually embraces all nations ; the 

* Ver. 11. &. B. L. T w . X. someMnn. ltP leri i ue ,Vg. omit r\v after ywij. Ver. 14. The 
mss. are divided between ev ravraii (T. R) and ev avraig (Alex.). Ver. 15. Some 
Mjj. and Mnn. Syr., o Iriaovi instead of o Kvptog. 17 Mjj. 80 Mnn. It. Vg., vironpirnt 
instead of vnoKpi-a, which the T. R. reads with D. V. X. the most of the Mnn. Syr. 



358 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

power of transformation, by which it gradually regenerates the whole of human life. 
The natural symbol of the first is a seed which acquires in a short time an increase 
out of all proportion to its original smallness ; that of the second, a fermenting ele- 
ment, materially very inconsiderable, but capable of exercising its assimilating virtue 
over a large mass. Those two parables form part of the collection, Matt. 13 : 31, 
et seq. ; the first only is found Mark 4 : 30, 31. 

Vers. 18 and 19.* Again the formula sheye 6i (or ovv, as some Alex. read). The 
two questions of ver. 18 express the activity of mind which seeks in nature the anal- 
ogies which it needs. The first : "To what & like . .' .," affirms the existence 
of the emblem sought ; the second : " To what shall I liken . . .," has the dis- 
covery of it in view. Mark likewise introduces this parable with two questions ; but 
they differ both in substance and form from those of Luke. Tradition had indeed 
preserved the memory of this style of speaking ; only it had modified the tenor of 
the questions. We must certainly reject with the Alex., in the text both of Luke • 
and Matthew the epithet great, applied to tree. Jesus does not mean to contrast a 
great tree with a small one, but a tree to vegetables in general. The mustard-plant in 
the East does not rise beyond the height of one of our small fruit-trees. But the excep- 
tional thing is, that a plant like mustard, which belongs to the class of garden herbs, 
and the grain of which is exceedingly small, puts forth a woody stalk adorned with 
branches, and becomes a veritable tree. It is thus the striking type of the dispropor- 
tion which prevails between the smallness of the kingdom of God at its commence- 
ment, when it is yet enclosed in the person of Jesus, and its final expansion, when it 
shall embrace all peoples. The form of the parable is shorter and simpler in Luke 
than in the other two. 

Vers. 20 and 21. f Jesus anew seeks an image (ver. 20) to portray the power of the 
kingdom of God as a principle of moral transformation* There is here, 'as in all the 
pairs of parables, a second aspect of the same truth ; comp. 5 : 36-38 ; 15 : 3-10 ; 
Matt. 13 : 44^46 ; John 10 : 1-10. We even find in Luke 15 and John 10 a third 
parable completing the other two. Leaven is the emblem of every moral principle, 
good or bad, possessing in some degree a power of fermentation and assimilation ; 
comp. Gal. 5 : 9. The three measures should be explained, like the three years (ver. 
7), by the figure taken as a whole. It was the quantity ordinarily employed for a 
batch. They have been understood as denoting the three branches of the human 
race, Shemites, Japhethites, and Hamites ; or, indeed, Greeks, Jews, and Samaritans 
(Theod. of Mopsuestia) ; or, again, of the heart, soul, and spirit (Augustine). Such 
reveries are now unthought of. The idea is, that the spiritual life enclosed in the 
Gospel must penetrate the whole of human life, the individual, thereby the family, 
and through the latter, society. 

Those two parables form the most entire contrast to the picture which the Jewish 
imagination had formed of the establishment of the Messiah's kingdom. One wave 
of the magic wand was to accomplish everything in the twinkling of an eye. In 
opposition to this superficial notion, Jesus sets the idea of a moral development which 
works by spiritual means and takes account of human freedom, consequently slow 
and progressive. How can it be maintained, in view of such sayings, that He 

* Ver. 18. &. B. L. some Mnn. ItP leri <i ue , Vg., ovv instead of de after e?ieyev. Ver. 
19. &. B. D. L. T w . Syr cur . It all «. omit /ueya after devdpov. 

j Ver. 20. The Alex. It. Vg. add nat before waktv. Ver. 21. The mss. are 
divided between eve/cpvipev (T. R.) and eupvipev (Alex.). 



II 2 2 

COMMENTARY Otf ST. LUKE. 359 

believed in the immediate nearness of His return 1 The place which those two par- 
ables occupy in the great collection Matt. 13 is evidently the result of a systematic 
arrangement ; there they have the effect of two flowers in a herbarium. Luke has 
restored them to their natural situation. His account is at once independent of and 
superior to that of Matthew ; Mark accords with Matthew. 

second cycle.— 13 : 22 ; 17 : 10. 

A New Series of Incidents in the Journey. 

Ver. 22 serves as an introduction to this whole cycle. Jesus slowly continues His 
journey of evangelization (duiropevero, He proceeded through the country), stopping at 
every city, and even at every village (Kara, distributive), taking advantage of every 
occasion which presents itself to instruct both those who accompany Him and the 
people of the place, only pursuing in the main a general direction toward Jerusalem 
(diddoKov, izoiov/ievos). Nothing could be more natural than this remark, which is 
founded on the general introduction, 9 : 51, and in keeping with the analogous forms 
used in cases of summing up and transition, which we have observed throughout this 
Gospel. 

1. The Rejection of Israel, and the Admission of the Gentiles : 13 : 23-30. An un- 
foreseen question calls forth a new flash. It was probably evoked by a saying of 
Jesus, which appeared opposed to the privileges of Israel, that is to say, to its national 
participation in the Messianic blessedness. 

Vers. 23-27.* " Then one said unto Him, Lord are there few that be saved ? 
And He said unto them. 24. Strive to enter in at the strait gate : for many, I say 
unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. 25. When once the Master of 
the house is risen up, and shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to 
knock at the door, saying Lord, Lord, open unto us, and He shall answer and say 
unto you, 1 know you not whence ye are : 26. Then shall ye begin to say, We have 
eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets. 27. But He 
shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are ; depart from me, all ye workers 
of iniquity." The question of ver. 23 was to a certain extent a matter of curiosity. 
In such cases Jesus immediately gives a practical turn to His answer. Comp. 12 : 41, 
John 3:3; and hence Luke says (ver. 23) : "He said to t7iem." Jesus gives no 
direct answer to the man ; He addresses a warning to the people on the occasion of 
His question. The Messianic kingdom is represented under the figure of a palace, 
into which men do not enter, as might appear natural, by a magnificent portal, but 
by a narrow gate, low, and scarcely visible, a mere postern. Those invited refuse to 
pass in thereby ; then it is closed, and they in vain supplicate the master of the house 
to re-open it ; it remains closed, and they are, and continue, excluded. The applica- 
tion is blended, to a certain extent, as in 12 : 58, 59, with the figure. 'A-yuvifroQai, to 
strive, refers in the parable to the difficulty of passing through the narrow opening ; 
in the application, to the humiliations of penitence, the struggles of conversion. The 
strait gate represents attachment to the lowly Messiah ; the magnificent gateway by 
which the Jews would have wished to enter, would represent, if it were mentioned, 
the appearance of the glorious Messiah whom they expected. 1 declare unto you, 

* Ver. 24. K. B. D. L. 2 Mnn. It ali <i., Ovpas instead of wv^s. Ver. 25. 8. B. L. 
It ali< J. Vg. read icvpie only once. Ver. 26. The mss., apteoQe or apfyoBe. Ver. 27. 
B. T w ., "keyuv instead of leyu. 5*. Vss. omit this word. B. L. R. T w . omit vfias. 



360 COMMENTARY 02ST ST. LUKE. 

says Jesus : They will think it incredible that so great a number of Jews, with the 
ardent desire to have part in that kingdom, should not succeed in entering it. The 
word 7ro?i?iOL, many, proves the connection between this discourse and the question of 
ver. 23. Only Jesus does not say whether there will be few or many saved ; He 
confines Himself to saying that there will be many lost. This is the one important 
matter for practical and individual application. It is perfectly consistent with this 
truth that there should be many saved. The meaning of the expression, will seek to 
enter in, ver. 24, is explained at ver. 25 by the cries which are uttered, and the knock- 
ings at the gate ; and the meaning of the words, but shall not be able, ver. 24, is 
•explained by vers. 26 and 27, which describe the futility of those efforts. 

It is not possible to connect the aft oti, when once, with the preceding phrase ; the 
period would drag intolerably. The principal proposition on which this conjunction 
depends must therefore be sought in what follows. This might be ml up^ecQe (not 
apfyoQe), ver. 25b : " When once the Master has risen ... ye shall begin, on 
your side (/c<u), . . . ;" or nai anoKpiQeiS epei at the end of the same ver. 25 : 
" He, on His side (nai), shall answer and say . . . ;" or, finally, and most nat- 
urally of all, the apodosis may be placed, as we have put it in our translation, at ver. 
26, in the words : rcfre ap^eade : then ye shall begin. The word then favors this con- 
struction. The decisive act of the Master in rising from His seat to shut the door 
symbolizes the fact that conversion and pardon are no longer possible (aft ov, when 
once). What moment is this ? Is it that of the rejection and dispersion of Israel ? 
No : for the Jews did not then begin to cry and to knock according to the descrip- 
tion of ver. 25. Is it the time of the Parousia, when the great Messianic festival shall 
open ? No ; for the Jews then living shall be converted and received into the palace. 
The words, when ye shall see (ver. 28), strikingly recall a similar feature in the parable 
of the wicked rich man, that in which this unhappy one is represented in Hades con- 
templating from afar the happiness of Lazarus in Abraham's bosom. We are thereby 
led to apply what follows ("when ye shall see Abraham . . ." ver. 23) to the 
judgment which Jesus pronounces at present on the unbelieving Jews, excluding them 
in the life to come from all participation in the blessings of salvation. Gess : " The 
house where Jesus waits can be no other than heaven ; it is the souls of the dead who 
remind him, ver. 26, of the relations which He had with them on the earth." This 
ver. 26 indicates the tendency to rest salvation on certain external religious advan- 
tages : " Thou wast one of ourselves ; we cannot perish." Is there in the words, I 
know not whence ye are (ver. 27), an allusion to the false confidence which the Jews 
put in their natural descent from Abraham ? 

Vers. 28-30.* " There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see 
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and 
you yourselves thrust out. 29. And they shall come from the east, and from the 
west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of 
God. 30. And, behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which 
shall be last." Wailings express despair, gnashings of teeth rage. The souls of the 
condemned oscillate between those two feelings. The article before the two substan- 
tives has the force of setting aside all former similar impressions as comparatively in- 
significant. Messianic blessedness is represented in ver. 28, according to a figure 

* Ver. 28. Marcion substituted for the enumeration, ver. 28 : navras tovs diicaiovs, 
and omitted vers. 29 and 30. 



13' 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 361 

familiar among the Jews (14 : 15), under the image of a banquet presided over by the 
patriarchs. From ver. 29 it follows that the believing Gentiles are admitted as well 
as the faithful posterity of Abraham. Thus there are really many persons saved. 
The words and behold (ver. 30) refer to the surprise produced by this entire reversal 
of position. The last here are not those who, within the confines of the kingdom, 
occupy the ]ast place ; they are, as the context proves, those who are excluded from 
it ; they are in the last place, absolutely speaking. The first are all the saved. The 
first proposition evidently applies to the Gentiles who are admitted (ver. 29), the sec- 
ond to the Jews who are rejected (vers. 27 and 28). 

Sayings similar to those of vers. 25-27 are found in Matt. 7, at the end of the Ser- 
mon on the Mount, also in 25 : 10-12 and 30. There is nothing to prevent us from 
regarding them as uttered on a different occasion. Those of ver. 28 and 29 appear in 
Matt. 8 : 11, 12, immediately after the cure of the centurion's son. But they are not 
so well accounted for there as in the context of Luke. The apophthegm of ver. 30 
forms (Matt. 19 : 30 and 20 : 16) the preface and the conclusion of the parable of the 
laborers called at different hours. In this context, the last who become the first are 
manifestly the laborers who, having come later, find themselves privileged to receive 
the same hire ; the first who become the last are those who, having wrought from the 
beginning of the day, are thereby treated less advantageously. Is this sense natural ? 
Is not the application of those expressions in Luke to the rejected Jews and admitted 
Gentiles more simple ? The Epistles to the Galatians and to the Romans are the only 
true commentary on this piece, and on the sayings of vers. 28 and 29 in particular. 
Now, as the historical truth of the whole passage is certified by the parallel of Mat- 
thew, we have a clear proof that the gospel of Paul no way differed in substance 
from that of Jesus and the Twelve. 

2. The Farewell to the Theocracy : 13 : 31-35. When the heart is full of some one 
feeling, everything which tells upon it from without calls forth the expression of it. 
And so, at the time when the mind of Jesus is specially occupied about the future of 
His people, it is not surprising that this feeling comes to light with every circum- 
stance which supervenes. There is therefore no reason why this perfectly natural 
fact should be taken to prove a systematic arrangement originating with Luke. 

Vers. 31-33.* " The same day there came certain of the Pharisees, saying unto 
Him, Get thee out, and depart hence ; for Herod will kill thee. 32. And He said 
unto them, Go ye and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and 1 do cures to-day 
and to-morrow, amd the third day 1 shall be perfected. 33. Nevertheless, I must 
walk to-day, and to-morrow, and the day following ; for it cannot be that a prophet 
perish out of Jerusalem." We cannot help being surprised at seeing the Pharisees 
interesting themselves in the safety of Jesus, and we are naturally led to suspect a 
feint, if not a secret understanding with Herod. Already at a much earlier date 
Mark (3 : 6) had showed us the Herodians and Pharisees plotting together. Is not 
something of the same kind now repeated ? Herod, on whose conscience there 
already weighed the murder of a prophet, was not anxious to commit another crime 
of the same sort ; but 'no more did he wish to see this public activity of Jesus, of 
which his dominions had been for some time the theatre, and the popular excitement 
which accompanied it, indefinitely prolonged. As to the Pharisees, it was natural that 

* Ver. 31. 7 Mjj. (Alex.) 15 Mnn., copa instead of m^o., Ver. 32. ». B. L. 2 Mnn., 
aTxoTtkti instead of etuteIu. B. some Mnn. Vss. add ^uepa after Tpcrjj. Ver. 33. &. 
D. A. some Mnn., spxofcEVT] instead of exo/uevt/. 



362 COMMENfAKY OH ST. ttJKE. 

they should seek to draw Jesus to Judea, where He would fall more directly under 
the power of the Sanhedrim. It had been agreed, therefore, to bring this lengthened 
journey to an end by terrifying Jesus. He penetrates their intrigue ; and hence He 
addresses His reply to Herod Himself, making the Pharisees at the same time His 
message-bearers, as they had been the king's message-bearers to him. " I see well 
on whose part you come. Go and answer Herod . . ." Thus also the epithet 
fox, which He applies to this prince, finds its explanation. Instead of issuing a com- 
mand, as becomes a king, he degrades himself to play the part of an intriguer. Not 
daring to show the teeth of the lion, he uses the tricks of the fox. Fault has been 
found with Jesus for speaking with so little respect of the prince of His people. But 
it must be remembered that Herod was the creature of Caesar, and not the lawful heir 
of David's throne. 

The meaning of the first part of the answer (ver. 326) is this : " Keassure thyself, 
thou who seekest to terrify me ; my present activity in no way threatens thy power ; 
1 am not a Messiah such as he whose appearance thou dreadest ; some devils cast out, 
some cures accomplished, such is all my work in thy dominions. And to complete 
the assuring of thee, I promise thee that it shall not be long ; to-day, to-morrow, and 
a day more ; then it will be at an end. ' ' These last words symbolically express the 
idea of a very short time ; comp. Hos. 6 : 2. We may regard reXetov/iai either, with 
Bleek, as Attic fut. mid., or, what seems simpler, as a pres. mid. used for the fut. to 
designate what is immediately imminent. The term so near can be none other than 
that of His life ; comp. 335. Bleek and others give Teleiovuat the active meaning : 
" I close [my ministry in Galilee]." But the word reheiov/iai in this context is too 
solemn to suit this almost superfluous sense. The Alex, reading cltzoteIC), 1 finish, 
does not so well correspond to the parallel term kupdllw, I cast out, as the received 
reading enireXQ, 1 work. It is probably owing to a retrospective influence of the word 
TeTieiov/xai. 

Ver. 33. Short as the time is which is allowed to Jesus, it remains none the less 
true (n^v) that He will quietly pursue His present journey, and that no one will 
force Him to bring His progress and work hastily to an end. The 6 el, I must, which 
refers to the decree of Heaven, justifies this mode of acting. Uopeveo6cu u to travel, 
the emblem of life and action ; this word is opposed to re?ieiov/j,ai, which designates 
the time at which the journeying ends. Ty exo/ievy (the day following), ver. 33, corre- 
sponds to Ty rphr/ (the third day), ver. 32 ; Jesus means : " 1 have only three days ; 
but I have them, and no one will cut them short." Wieseler takes the three days 
literally, and thinks that at the time when Jesus thus spoke He was but three days' 
journey from Bethany, whither he was repairing. It would be difficult to reduce so 
weighty a saying to greater poverty of meaning. Bleek, who does not succeed in 
overcoming the difficulty of this enigmatical utterance, proposes to suppress in ver. 
33 the words arj^epov nal avptov nai as a very old interpolation. No document sup- 
ports this supposition, which would have the effect of mutilating one of the most 
striking declarations of our Lord. 

The last words of ver. 33 are the answer of Jesus to the Pharisees. They, too, 
may reassure themselves ; their prey will not escape them. Jerusalem has the mon- 
opoly of killing the prophets, and on this highest occasion the city will not be de- 
prived of its right. The word evdexerai, it is possible, contains, like the entire saying, 
a scathing irony : " It is not suitable ; it would be contrary to use and wont, and, in 
a manner, to theocratic decorum, if such a prophet as I should perish elsewhere than 



/3 

COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 363 

in Jerusalem ! " No doubt John the Baptist had perished away from that city. But 
such ironies must not be taken in the strict letter. Jerusalem could not let her privi- 
lege be twice taken from her in so short a time ! The relation indicated by ore, for, 
is this : " I know that the time which is at my disposal in favor of Galilee will not be 
cut short by my death ; for I am not to die elsewhere than at Jerusalem . . ." 
According to Holtzmann, this passage, peculiar to Luke and taken from A, was omit- 
ted by Matthew because of its obscurity. Must he not have omitted many others for 
the same reason ? 

Already, vers. 4, 5, on occasion of an event which more particularly concerned 
the Galileans, the mind of Jesus had been directed toward Jerusalem. Now the 
thought of this capital, become, as it were, the executioner of the prophets, takes pos- 
session of His heart. His grief breaks forth ; the prelude to the tears of Palm-day. 

Vers. 34 and 35.* " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and 
stonest them that are sent unto thee ; how often would I have gathered thy children 
together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not ! 
35. Behold, your house is left unto you. But I say unto you, ye shall not see me 
until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the 
Lord." It is surprising at first sight to find such an apostrophe to Jerusalem in the 
heart of Galilee. But were not the Pharisees whom Jesus had before Him the repre- 
sentatives of that capital ? Comp. 5 : 17 : " There were Pharisees and doctors of the 
law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judea, and Jeru- 
salem." Had He not been setting their minds at rest as such ? Such an apostrophe 
to Jerusalem, regarded from a distance, has something about it more touching than 
if He had already been within its walls. In Matt. 23 : 37 it is placed, during his so- 
journ at Jerusalem, on one of the days preceding the Passion, and at the point when 
Jesus leaves the temple for the last time. This situation is grand and tragic ; but is 
it not probable that this placing of the passage w T as due to the certainly too narrow 
application (see below) of the expression your house (ver. 35) to the temple ? The 
words thy children have been applied by Baur not to the inhabitants of Jerusalem 
only, but to all Israelites, Galileans included ; and he denies, consequently, that this 
saying could serve to prove the conclusion which has often been drawn from it, viz. 
that the narrative of the Syn. implies the numerous sojourns at Jerusalem which are 
related by John. But the relation of ver. 34 to the latter part of ver. 33 compels us 
to restrict the meaning of the word to the inhabitants of Jerusalem ; its only admissi- 
ble sense also in Luke 19 : 44 ; and, taken by itself, its only natural sense. Only, it 
is assumed that the fate of the population of the capital involves in it that of the 
other inhabitants of the country. 

The contrast between 1 would . . . and ye would not proves the sad privilege 
which man possesses of resisting the most earnest drawings of grace. As to Jesus, 
while mournfully asserting the futility of His efforts to save His people, He does not 
the less persevere in His work ; for He knows that, if it has not the result that it 
might and should have, it will have another, in which God will notwithstanding carry 

* Ver. 34. The mss. are divided between ttjv voooiav (Alex, and T. R.) and ra 
voaoia (Byz. Syr. ItP leri i ue ). Ver. 35. T. R. adds epilog after olkoS v/lluv, with D. E. G. 
H. M. U. X. A. the most of the Mnn. Syr. ltP leri i ue . All the Mjj., Xeyu 6e (». L. 
without fie) instead of afirjv (h leyu, which T. R. reads with several Mnn. 6 Mjj. omit 
otc. The mss. are divided between eug (or eoS av) r\t,i] (or tj^ei) oti enrrjre (T. R.) and 
£wS (or £wf av) enrnTe (Alex., according to Matthew). 



364 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE, 

out His plan to fulfilment. Some Jews saved shall become, in default of the nation 
as a whole, the instruments of the world's salvation. Jesus represents Himself, ver. 
34, as a protector stretching His compassionate arms over the theocracy and its capi- 
tal, because He knows well that He alone can rescue them from the catastrophe by 
which they are threatened. It is, in another form, the idea of the parable of the fig- 
tree (vers. 6-9). Now Israel rejects the protection which He offers. What more can 
Jesus do (ver. 35) ? Leave to Israel the care of its own defence, that is to say — Jesus 
knows it well — give it up to a ruin which He alone could avert. Such is the mean- 
ing of the words, your Jiouse is left unto you ; henceforth it is gi ven over to your 
guardianship. Jesus frees Himself of the charge which His Father had confided to 
Him, the salvation of the theocracy. It is in its every feature the situation of the 
divine Shepherd in His last endeavor to save the flock of slaughter, Zach. 11 : 4^14. 
The application of the expression your house to the temple, in such a unity, must be 
felt to be much too special. The place in question is Canaan, the abode divinely 
granted to the people, and especially Jerusalem, the centre of the theocracy. The 
authenticity of the word epijpos, desolate (ver. 35), appears more than doubtful both in 
Matthew and Luke. If this word were authentic, it would refer to the withdrawal 
of Jesus' visible presence ; comp. Ezek. 11, where the cloud rising from over the 
sanctuary passes eastward, and from that moment the temple is empty and desolate. 
But the government v/uv, "is left to you," and the want of sufficient authorities, 
speak against this reading. 

Like a bird of prey hovering in the air, the enemy is threatening the inhabitants of 
Jerusalem. Jesus, who was sheltering them under His wings as a hen her brood, 
withdraws, and they remain exposed, reduced thenceforth to defend themselves. 
The adversative form, hut I say unto you, is certainly preferable to that of Matthew, 
for Isay unto you. " 1 go away ; but 1 declare to you, it will be for longer than you 
think ; that my absence may be brought to an end, you yourselves, by the change of 
your sentiments in regard to me, will have to give the signal for my return. " The 
words etoi uv rj^y, until it come to pass that . . ., are the true reading. This moral 
change will certainly (fws) come about, but when (uv) it is impossible to say. Some 
commentators (Paulus, Wieseler, etc.) think that the time here pointed to is Palm- 
day, on which Jesus received the homage of part of the people, and particularly of the 
Galileans, to whom these sayings had been addressed. " Ye shall not see me again, 
ye Galileans, until we meet together on the occasion of my entry into Jerusalem." 
But how poor and insignificant would this meaning be, after the previous sajings ! 
What bearing on the salvation of Israel had this separation of a few weeks ? Besides, 
it was not to the Galileans that Jesus was speaking it was to the representatives of 
the pharisaic party (vers. 31-34). In Matthew's context, the interpretation of Wies- 
eler is still more manifestly excluded. The words which Jesus here puts into the 
mouth of converted Israel in the end of the days, are taken from Ps. 1.18 : 26. This 
cry of penitent Israel will bring the Messiah down again, as the sigh of Israel, 
humbled and waiting for consolation, had led Him to appear the first time (Isa. 64 : 
1). The announcement of the future return of Jesus, brought about by the faith of 
the people in His Messiahship (6 kpxofievoi), thus forms the counterpart to that of His 
near departure, caused by the national unbelief (re2,eiov/iat). How can any one fail to 
feel the appropriateness, the connection, the harmony of all the parts of this admir- 
able answer? How palpable, at least in this case, is the decisive value of Luke's short 
introduction for the understanding of the whole piece ! The important matter here, 



/ 



9 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 365 

as everywhere, is, above all, the precise indication of the interlocutors : ' ' The same 
day there came certain of the Pharisees, saying . . ." 

3. Jesus at a Feast : 14 : 1-24. The following piece allows us to follow Jesus in 
His domestic life ami familiar conversations. It is connected with the preceding by 
the fact that it is with a Pharisee Jesus has to do. We are admitted to the entire 
scene : 1st. The entering into the house (vers. 1-6) ; 2d. The sitting down at table 
(vers. 7-11) ; 3d. Jesus conversing with His host about the choice of his guests (vers. 
12-14 ; Ath. His relating the parable of the great supper, occasioned by the exclama- 
tion of one of the guests (vers. 15-24). 

Holtzmann, of course, regards this frame as being to a large extent invented by 
Luke to receive the detached sayings of Jesus, which he found placed side by side in 
A. This is to suppose in Luke as much genius as unscrupulousness. Weizsacker, 
starting from the idea that the contents of this part are systematically arranged and 
frequently altered to meet the practical questions which were agitating the apostolic 
church at the date of Luke's composition, alleges that the whole of this chapter re- 
lates to the agapw of the primitive Church, and is intended to describe those feasts as 
embodiments of brotherly love and pledges of the heavenly feast ; and he concludes 
1 herefrom, as from an established fact, the somewhat late origin of our Gospel. 
Where is the least trace of such an intention to be found ? 

1st. Vers. 1-6.* To accept an invitation to the house of a Pharisee, after the pre- 
vious scenes, was to do an act at once of courage and kindness. The host was one 
of the chief of his sect. There is no proof of the existence of a hierarchy in this 
party ; but one would naturally be formed by superiority of knowledge and talent. 
The interpretation of Grotius, who takes rtiv fyapicaiuv as in apposition to r&v 
apxovruv, is inadmissible. The guests it is said, watched Jesus. Ver. 2 indi- 
cates the trap which had been laid for Him ; and ISov, behold, marks the time when 
this unlooked-for snare is discovered to the eyes of Jesus. The picture is taken at 
the moment. The word diroKpLdeir, answering (ver, 3), alludes to the question im- 
plicitly contained in the sick man's presence: "Wilt thou heal, or wilt thou not 
heal ?" Jesus replies by a counter question, as at 6 : 9. The silence of His adversaries 
betrays their bad faith. The reading 6voS, ass, in the Sinaiticus and some mss. (ver 5), 
arises no doubt from the connection with @ovc, ox, or from the similar saying, 13 : 
15. The true reading is vloi, son : " If thy son, or even thine ox only . . ." In 
this word son, as in the expression daughter of Abraham (13 : 16), there is revealed a 
deep feeling of tenderness for the sufferer. We cannot overlook a correspond- 
ence between the malady (dropsy) and the supposed accident (falling into a pit). 
Comp. 13 : 15, 16, the correspondence between the halter with which the ox is fas- 
tened to the stall, and the bond by which Satan holds the sufferer in subjection. 
Here again we find the perfect suitableness, even in the external drapery, which 
characterizes the declarations of our Lord. In Matt. 12 : 11 this figure is applied to 
the curing of a man who has a withered hand. It is less happy, and is certainly 
inexact. 

* Ver. 3. 5*. B. D. L.omit et before e&oriv, and, with several Mnn. and Vss., they 
add v ov after Qepairevaat (T. R, depaneveiv). Ver. 5. 6 Mjj. 15 Mnn. Syr. ItP le 'i<i ue T 
omit anoKpiQeig before npoi avrovi. A. B. E. G. H. M. S. U. V. I\ A. A. 130 Mnn. 
Syr. It ali< i. read vtos instead of ovor, which &. K. L. X. II. some Mnn. It" 11 *. Vg. read. 
The mss. are divided between efmeoeirai (T. R.) and necst-ai (Alex.) Ver. 6. &. B. 
D. L. some Mnn. omit avru after avTaTroKpiBrjvai, 



366 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

2d. Vers. 7-11.* Here is the point at which the guests seat themselves at table. 
The recommendation contained in this passage is not, as has often been thought, a 
counsel of worldly prudence. Holtzmann ascribes this meaning, if not to the Lord, 
at least to Luke. But the very term parable (ver. 7) and the adage of ver. 11 protest 
against this supposition, and admit of our giving to the saying no other than a relig- 
ious sense and a spiritual application ; comp. 18 : 14. In a winning and appropriate 
form Jesus gives the guests a lesson in humility, in the deepest sense of the word. 
Every one ought in heart to take, and ever take again, the last place before God, or as 
St. Paul says, Phil. 2 : 3, to regard others as better than himself. The judgment of 
God will perhaps be different ; but in this way we run no other risk than that of 
being exalted. 'Eirexav, fixing His attention on that habitual way of acting among the 
Pharisees (Luke 20 : 46). Ewald and Holtzmann darken counsel about the word 
wedding (ver. 8), which does not suit a simple repast like this. But Jesus in this verse 
is not speaking of the present repast, but of a supposed feast. The proper reading is 
av&TTEoe, not avanEcai — this verb has no middle — or avdneoov, which has only a few au- 
thorities. In the lowest place (ver. 10), because in the interval all the intermediate seats 
had been occupied. The expression, thou shalt haw glory, would be puerile, if it did 
not open up a glimpse of a heavenly reality: 

3d Ver. 12-14. f The company is seated. Jesus, then observing that the guests in 
general belonged to the upper classes of society, addresses to His host a lesson on 
charity, which He clothes, like the preceding, in the graceful form of a recommen- 
dation of intelligent self-interest. The M-nore, lest (ver. 12), carries a tone of liveli- 
ness and almost of pleasantry : "Beware of it; it is a misfortune to be avoided. For, 
once thou shalt have received human requital, it is all over with divine recompense." 
Jesus does not mean to forbid our entertaining those whom we love. He means 
simply : in view of the life to come, thou canst do better still, 'kv&nripoi, those who 
are deprived of some one sense or limb, most frequently the blind or the lame ; here, 
where those two categories are specially mentioned, the maimed in general. In it- 
self, the expression resurrection of the just, ver. 14, does not necessarily imply a dis- 
tinction between two resurrections, the one of the just exclusively, the other general ; 
it might signify merely, when the just shall rise at the inauguration of the Messianic 
kingdom. But as Luke 20 : 35 evidently proves that this distinction was in the mind 
of Jesus,:}: it is natural to explain the term from this point of view (comp. 1 Cor. 15 : 
23 ; 1 Thess. 4 : 16 ; Phil. 3 : 11 ; Rev. 20.) 

4th. Vers. 15-24. The conversation which follows belongs to a later time in the 
feast. Jesus had been depicting the just seated at the Messiah's banquet, and receiv- 
ing a superabundant equivalent for the least works of love which they have performed 
here below. This saying awakes in the heart of one of the guests a sweet anticipa- 
tion of heavenly joys ; or perhaps he seizes it as an occasion for laying a snare for 
Jesus, and leading Him to utter some heresy on the subject. The severe tendency 
of the following parable might favor this second interpretation. In any case, the 
enumeration of ver. 21 (comp. ver. 13) proves the close connection between those two 
parts of the conversation. 

. * Ver. 10. &. B. L. X. some Mnn., epsi instead of eiTtrj. &. A. B. L. X. 12 Mnn. 

Syr. add navruv before tuv avvavaKetjusvuv. 

T Ver. 14. &. 5 Mnn. It ali< *.. 6e instead of yap after avTairododvceTai. 

% That this was in the mind of Jesus is not evident to interpreters generally. In 
this, and in one or two other passages, the author is less clear than is usual with him 
regarding the events of the future.— J. H. 



/v 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 367 

Vers. 15-20.*— "Aprov tp&yeoBcu (fut. of (pdyu) merely signifies, to be admitted to the 
"heavenly feast. There is no allusion in the expression to the excellence of the meats 
which shall form this repast (ver. 1). Jesus replies, " Yes, blessed ; and therefore 
beware of rejecting the blessedness at the very moment when thou art extolling its 
greatness." Such is the application of the following parable. The word no2,Xov$, 
significant of numerous guests, ver. 16, is sufficiently justified when applied to the 
Jewish people alone ; for this invitation includes all divine advances, at all periods 
of the theocracy. The last call given to the guests (ver. 17) relates to the ministries 
of John the Baptist and of Jesus Himself. It cannot be proved that it was usual to 
send a message at the last moment ; but the hour was come, and nobody appeared. 
This touch brings out the ill-will of those invited ; there was no possibility of their 
forgetting. The expression, all things are ready, describes the glorious freeness of 
salvation. The excuses put forth by the invited, vers. 18-20, are not in earnest ; for, 
warned as they were long beforehand, they could have chosen another day for their 
different occupations. The choice made, which is at the bottom of those refusals, 
betrays itself in the uniformity of their answers. It is like a refrain (and juidg, under- 
stand : (puvTji or -yvufirjs, ver. 18). They have passed the word to one anuther. The 
true reason is evidently the antipathy which they feel to him who invites them ; comp. 
John 15 : 24 : " They have hated both me and my Father." 

Vers. 21-24. f In the report which the servant gives of his mission, we may hear, 
as Stier so well observes, the echo of the sorrowful lamentations uttered by Jesus over 
the hardening of the Jews during His long nights of prayer. The anger of the mas- 
ter (opyioQeic) is the retaliation for the hatred which he discovers at the bottom of 
their refusals. The first supplementary invitation which he commissions his servant 
to give, represents the appeal addressed by Jesus to the lowest classes of Jewish 
society, those who are called, 15 : 1, publicans and sinners. ILXarelac, the larger 
streets, which widen out into squares. 'Pvpai, the small cross streets. There is no 
going out yet from the city. The second supplementary invitation (vers. 22 and 23) 
represents the calling of the Gentiles ; for those to whom it is addressed are no longer 
inhabitants of the city. The love of God is great : it requires a multitude of guests ; 
it will not have a seat left empty. The number of the elect is, as it were, determined 
beforehand by the riches of divine glory, which cannot find a complete reflection 
without a certain number of human beings. The invitation will therefore be con- 
tinued, and consequently the history of our race prolonged, until that number be 
reached. Thus the divine decree is reconciled with human liberty. In comparison 
with the number called, there are undoubtedly few saved through the fault of the 
former ; but nevertheless, speaking absolutely, there are very many saved. Qpay/iol, 
the hedges which enclose properties, and beneath which vagrants squat. The phrase, 
compel them to come in, applies to people who would like to enter, but are yet kept 
back by a false timidity. The servant is to push them, in a manner, into the house 
in spite of their scruples. The object, therefore, is not to extinguish their liberty, but 
rather to restore them to it. For they would ; but they dare not. As ver. 21 is the 

* Ver. 15. The Mnn. are divided between oS (T. R.) and oans (Alex.) before 
Qayerat. Instead of aprov, some Mjj. (Byz.) 130 Mnn. Syr cur ., apiarov. Ver. 16. K. 
B. R. Syr cur . , enoiet instead of sTToirjoev. Ver. 17. &* B. L. R. It al, <i. omit rcavra 
after eanv (or etaiv), 

f Ver. 21. 9 Mjj. 12 Mnn. It. Vg. omit eneivos after davtos. Ver. 22. 8. B. P. L. 
R, Syr cur ., o instead of wS before eirera^as. 



368 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

text of the first part of Acts (1 : 12, conversion of the Jews), vers. 22 and 23 are the 
text of the second (13 to the end, conversion of the Gentiles), and indeed of the whole 
present economy. Weizsacker accuses Luke of having added to the original parable 
this distinction between two new invitations, and that in favor of Paul's mission to 
the Gentiles. If this saying were the only one which the evangelists put into the 
mouth of Jesus regarding the calling of the Gentiles, this suspicion would be conceiv- 
able. But does not the passage 13 : 28-30 already express this idea ? and is not this 
saying found in Matthew as well as in Luke ? Comp. also Matt. . 24 : 14 ; John 
10 : 16. According to several commentators, ver. 24 does not belong to the parable ; 
it is the application of it addressed by Jesus to all the guests (" I say unto you"). 
But the subject of the verb, 1 say,h evidently still the host of the parable ; the pron. 
you designates the persons gathered round him at the time when he gives this order. 
Only the solemnity with which Jesus undoubtedly passed His eyes over the whole 
assembly, while putting this terrible threat into the mouth of the master in the par- 
able, made them feel that at that very moment the scene described was actually pass- 
ing between Him and them. 

The parable of the great feast related Matt. 22 : 1-14 has great resemblances to 
this ; but it differs from it as remarkably. More generalized in the outset, it becomes 
toward the end more detailed, and takes even a somewhat complex character. It may 
be, as Bleek thinks, a combination of two parables originally distinct. This seems to 
be proved by certain touches, such as the royal dignity of the host, the destruction 
by his armies of the city inhabited by those first invited, and then everything relating 
to the man who had come in without a wedding garment. Nothing, on the contrary, 
could be more simple and complete than the delineation of Luke. 

4. A Warning against hasty Professions ; 14 : 25-35. The journey resumes its 
course ; great crowds follow Jesus. There is consequently an attraction to His side. 
This appears in the plurals ox^oi, multitudes, the adjective ttoTaoc, and the imperfect 
of duration aweTvopevouro, were accompanying Him. This brief introduction, as in 
similar cases, gives the key to the following discourse, which embraces : 1st. A warn- 
ing (vers. 26 and 27) ; 2d. Two parables (vers. 28-32) ; 3d A conclusion, clothed in 
a new figure (vers. 33-35). 

Vers. 25-27.* " And there went great multitudes with Him ; and He turned, and 
said unto them, 26. If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and 
wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be 
my disciple. 27. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, can- 
not be my disciple." Seeing those crowds Jesus is aware that between Him and 
them there is a misunderstanding. The Gospel, rightly apprehended, will not be the 
concern of the multitude. He lifts His voice to reveal this false situation : You are 
going up with me to Jerusalem, as if you were repairing to a feast. But do you know 
what it is for a man to join himself to my company ? It is to abandon what is dearest 
and most vital (ver. 26), and to accept what is most painful — the cross (ver. 27). 
Coming to me (ver. 26) denotes outward attachment to Jesus ; being my disciple, at the 
end of the verse, actual dependence on His person and spirit. That the former may 
be changed into the latter, and that the bond between Jesus and the professor may be 
durable, there must be effected in him a painful breach with everything which is 

» 
* Ver. 27. This verse is omitted by M. R. I\ and very many Mnn. (by homoioteleu- 
ton). & B. L. Cop. omit Kai before ogtiS. 



'7 

COMMENTARY ON - ST. LUKE. 369 

naturally dear to him. The word hate in this passage is often interpreted in the sense 
of loving less. Bleek quotes examples, which are not without force. Thus, Gen. 
29 : 30, 31. It is also the meaning of Matthew's paraphrase (10 : 37), 6 <pi\&v . . . 
vKep ejus. Yet it is simpler to keep the natural sense of the word hate, if it offers an 
admissible application. And this we find when we admit that Jesus is here regard- 
ing the well-beloved ones whom He enumerates as representatives of our natural life, 
that life, strictly and radically selfish, which separates us from God. Hence He 
adds : Tea, and Ms own life also ; this word forms the key to the understanding of the 
word hate. At bottom, our own life is the only thing to be hated. Everything else 
is to be hated only in so far as it partakes of this principle of sin and death, ^cord- 
ing to Deut. 21 : 18-21, when a man showed himself determinedly vicious or impious, 
his father and mother were to be the first to take up stones to stone him. Jesus in 
this place only spiritualizes this precept. The words : Tea, and Ms own life also, 
thus remove from this hatred every notion of sin, and allow us to see in it nothing 
but an aversion of a purely moral kind. 

There are not only affections to be sacrificed, bonds to be broken ; there are suffer- 
ings to be undergone in the following of Jesus. The emblem of those positive evils 
is the cross, that punishment the most humiliating and painful of all, which had been 
introduced into Israel since the Roman subjugation. Without supplying an ovk be- 
fore ipxercu, we might translate: "Whosoever doth not bear . . . and who 
nevertheless cometh after me . . ." But this interpretation is far from natural. 
Those well-disposed crowds who were following Jesus without real conversion had 
never imagined anything like this. Jesus sets before their very eyes these two indis- 
pensable conditions of true faith by two parables (ver. 28-32). 

Vers. 28-30.* The Improvident Builder. Building here is the image of the Christian 
life, regarded in its positive aspect : the foundation and development of the work of 
God in the heart and life of the believer. The tower, a lofty edifice which strikes 
the eye from afar, represents a mode of living distinguished from the common, and 
attracting general attention. New professors often regard with complacency what 
distinguishes them outwardly from the world. But building costs something ; and 
the work once begun must be finished, under penalty of being exposed to public ridi- 
cule. One should therefore have first made his estimates, and accepted the inroad upon 
his capital which will result from such an undertaking. His capital is his own life, 
which he is called to spend, and to spend wholly in the service of his sanctification. 
The work of God is not seriously pursued, unless a man is daily sacrificing some part 
of that which constitutes the natural fortune of the human heart, particularly the 
affections, which are so deep, referred to, ver. 26. Before, therefore, any one puts 
himself forward as a professor, it is all important that he should have calculated this 
future expenditure, and thoroughly made up his mind not to recoil from any of those 
sacrifices which fidelity will entail. Sitting doion and counting are emblems of the seri- 
ous acts of recollection and meditation which should precede a true profession. This 
was precisely what Jesus had done in the wilderness. But what happens when this 
condition is neglected ? After having energetically pronounced himself, the new pro- 
*fessor recoils step by step from the cod sequences of the position which he has taken 
up. He stops short in the sacrifice of his natural life ; and this inconsistency pro- 

* Ver. 28. B. D. L. K. It ali *. omit ra, and the same with 13 other Mjj. 50 Mnn. 
read ei; instead of npoS before airapTiofiov. T. R., ra irpoS cnrapTLCfiov, with F. V. X. 
n, many Mnn. 



370 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

vokes the contempt and ridicule of the world, which soon discovers that he who had 
separated himself from it with so much parade, is after all but one of its own. Noth- 
ing injures the gospel like those relapses, the ordinary results of hasty profession. 

Vers. 31, 32.* The Improvident Warrior. Here we have an emblem of the Chris- 
tian life, regarded on its negative or polemical side. The Christian is a king, but a 
king engaged in a struggle, and a struggle with an enemy materially stronger than 
himself. Therefore, before defying him with a declaration of war by the open pro- 
fession of the gospel, a man must have taken counsel with himself, and become 
assured that he is willing to accept the extreme consequences of this position, even 
to the'giving up of his life if demanded ; this condition is expressed ver. 27. Would 
not a little nation like the Swiss bring down ridicule on itself by declaring war with 
France, if it were not determined to die nobly on the field of battle ? Would not 
Luther have acted like a fool when he affixed his theses to the church door, or burned 
the Papal bull, had he not first made the sacrifice of his life in the inner court of his 
heart ? It is heroical to engage in a struggle for a just and holy cause, but on one 
condition : that is, that we have accepted death beforehand as the end of the way ; 
otherwise this declaration of war is nothing but rodomontade. The words : whether 
he is able, have a slight touch of irony ; able to conquer, and, as under such conditions 
that is impossible, to die in the unequal struggle. Ver. 32 has been regarded either 
' as a call to us to take account of our weakness, that we may ask the help of God 
(Olshausen), or a summons promptly to seek reconciliation with God (Gerlach). Both 
interpretations are untenable, because the hostile king challenged by the declaration 
of war is not God, but the prince of this world. It is therefore much rather a warn- 
ing which Jesus gives to those who profess discipleship, but who have not decided to 
risk everything, to make their submission as early as possible to the world and its 
prince. Better avoid celebrating a Palm-day than end after such a demonstration 
with a Good Friday ! Kather remain an honorable man, unknown religiously, than 
become what is sadder in the world, an inconsistent Christian. A warning, therefore, 
to those who formed the attendants of Jesus, to make their peace speedily with the 
Sanhedrim, if they are not resolved to follow their new Master to the cross ! Jesus 
drew this precept also from His own experience. He had made his reckoning in 
the wilderness with the prince of this world, and with life, before beginning His work 
publicly. Gess rightly says : " Those two parables show with what seriousness Jesus 
had Himself prepared for death." 

Vers. 33-35.f The Application of those two Parables, with a new Figure confirming 
it.—" So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he 
cannot be my disciple. 34. Salt is good : but if the salt have lost his savor, where- 
with shall it be seasoned ? 35. It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill ; 
but men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Here is the summing 
up of the warning which was intended to calm the unreflecting enthusiasm of those 
multitudes. The expression : forsaketh all that he hath, natural life, as well as all the 
affections and all the goods fitted to satisfy it, sums up the two conditions indicated 
vers. 26 (the giving up of enjoyment) and 27 (the acceptance of the cross). Salt (ver. 
34) corrects the tastelessness of certain substances, and preserves others from corrup-* 

* Ver. 31. &. B. ltP le "<J ue , Qovkevoerai instead of povleverai. The mss. are divided 
between anavrrjaai (T, R.) and viravTrjGai (Alex.). 

f Ver. 34. ». B. L. X. some Mnn. add ovv after koXqv. &. B. D. L. X. 8 Mnn. 

J^plerique^ ?av $ e Kai i US tead Of MV 6e, 




COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

tioa ; the marvellous efficacy of this agent on materials subjected to its quickening 
energy is a good thing, and even good to observe (/ca/,6v). In this twofold relation it 
is the emblem of the sharp and austere savor of holiness, of the action of the gospel 
on the natural life, the insipidity and frivolity of which are corrected by the Divine 
Spirit. No more beautiful spectacle in the moral world than this action of the gos- 
pel through the instrumentality of the consistent Christian on the society around him. 
But if the Christian himself by his unfaithfulness destroys this holy power, no means 
will restcre to him the savor which it was his mission to impart to the world. 
'ApTvbrjaeTai might be taken impersonally : " If there is no more salt, wherewith shall 
men salt (things) ?" But Jesus is not here describing the evil results of Christian 
unfaithfulness to the world or the gospel ; it is the professor himself who is con- 
cerned (ver. 35 : men cast it out). The subject of the verb is therefore, alas, salt 
itself ; comp. Mark 9 : 50 : ev rivi apTvoere avro ; " wherewith will ye season itV 
Salt which has become savorless is fit for nothing ; it cannot serve the soil as earth, 
nor pasture as dung. It is only good to be cast out, says Luke ; trodden underfoot of 
men, says Matt. 5 : 13. Salt was sometimes used to cover slippery ways (Erub. f. 
104. 1 : Spargunt salem in clivo ne nutent (pedes). A reserved attitude toward the 
gospel is therefore a less critical position than an open profession followed by deelen- 
sion. In the moral as in the physical world, without previous heating there is no 
deadly chill. Jesus seems to say that the life of nature may have its usefulness in 
the kingdom of God, either in the form of mundane (land) respectability, or even as 
a life completely corrupted and depraved (dung). In the first case, indeed, it is the 
soil wherein the germ of the higher life may be sown ; and in the second, it may at 
least, call forth a moral reaction among those who feel indignation or disgust at the 
evil, and drive them to seek life from on high ; w T hile the unfaithfulness of the Chris- 
tian disgusts men with the gospel itself. The expression : cast out (give over to per- 
dition, John 15 : 6), forms the transition to the final call : He that hath ears . . . 

This discourse is the basis of the famous passage, Heb. 6 : 4-8. The commenta- 
tors who have applied it to the rejection of the Jews have not sufficiently considered 
the context, and especially the introduction, ver. 25, which, notwithstanding Holtz- 
mann's contemptuous treatment, is, as we have just seen, the key of the whole piece. 
Matthew places the apophthegm, vers. 34, 35, in that passage of the Sermon on the 
Mount where the grandeur of the Christian calling is described (5 : 13-16). Perhaps 
he was led to put it there by the analogy of the saying to the immediately following 
one : "Ye are the light of the world." Mark places it, like Luke, toward the end 
of the Galilean ministry (9 : 50) ; and such a warning is better explained at a more 
advanced period. Besides, like so many other general maxims, it may perfectly well 
have been uttered twice. 

5. The Parables of Grace : chap. 15. This piece contains : 1st. A historical intro- 
duction (vers. 1 and 2) ; 2d. A pair of parables, like that of the previous chapter 
(vers. 3-10) ; and M. A great parable, which forms the summing up and climax of 
the two preceding (vers. 11-32). The relation is like that between the three allegories, 
John 10 : 1-18. 

1st. Vers. 1 and 2.* The Introduction. — If Weizsaker had sufficiently weighed the 
bearing of the analytical from rjaav syyifyvreS, they were drawing near, which denotes 
a state of things more or less permanent, he would not have accused Luke (p. 139) of 
transforming into the event of a particular time a very common situation in the life 

* Ver. 2. ». B. D. L. add re after oi. 



372 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

of Jesus. It is on the basis of this habitual state of things that the point of time (aor. 
elite, ver. 3) is marked off when Jesus related the following parables. Holtzmann 
finds nothing in this introduction but an invention of Luke himself.. In any case, 
Luke places us once more, by this short historical introduction, at the point of 
view for understanding the whole of the following discourse. What drew those 
sinners to Jesus was their finding in Him not that righteousness, full of pride and 
contempt, with which the Pharisees assailed them, but a holiness which was 
associated with the tenderest love. The publicans and sinners had broken with 
Levitical purity and Israelitish respectability ; the former by their business, the 
others by their life. They were outlaws in Israel. But were they finally lost on that 
account ? Undoubtedly, the normal way of entering into union with God would have 
been through fidelity to the theocracy ; but the coming of the Saviour opened another 
to those who, by their guilt, had shut the first against them. And that was exactly 
the thing which had exasperated the zealots of Levitical observances. Rather than 
recognize in Jesus one who had understood the merciful purpose of God, they pre- 
ferred to explain the compassionate welcome which He gave to sinners by His secret 
sympathy with sin. UpoodixeoBai, to receive with welcome, refers to kindly relations 
in general : cweoQieiv, to eat with, to the decisive act in the manners of that time by 
which He did not fear to seal this connection. 

2d. Vers. 3-10. The two parables of the lost sheep and .of the lost drachma, as such 
pairs of parables always do, present the same idea, but in two different aspects. The 
idea common to both is the solicitude of God for sinners ; the difference is, that in 
the first instance this solicitude arises from the compassion with which their misery 
inspires Him, in the second from the value which He attaches to their persons. The 
two descriptions are intended to show that the conduct of Jesus toward those despised 
beings correspouds in all respects to that compassionate solicitude, and so to justify 
the instrument of divine love. If God cannot be accused of secret sympathy with 
sin, how could Jesus possibly be so when carrying His purpose into execution ? 

Vers. 3-7.* The Lost Sheep. God seeks sinners because the sinner is a miserable 
being deserving pity : such is the meaning of this description. The parable is put 
in the form of a question. In point of fact, it is at once an argumentum ad hominem 
and an argument a fortiori : " What do ye yourselves in such a case? And besides, 
the case is like : a sheep, a man !" Which of you f " There is not a single one of 
you who accuse me here who does not act exactly like me in similar circumstances. ' ' 
"AvQpunoc, man, is tactily contrasted with God (ver. 7). The hundred sheep represent 
the totality of the theocratic people ; the lost sheep, that portion of the people which 
has broken with legal ordinances, and so lives under the impulse of its own passions ; 
the ninety and nine, the majority which has remained outwardly faithful to the law. 
'Ep-qfios, which we translate loilderness simply denotes in the East uncultivated plains, 
pasturage, in opposition to tilled fields. It is the natural resort of sheep, but without 
the notion of danger and barrenness which we connect with the idea of wilderness. 
This place where the flock feeds represents the more or less normal state of the faith- 
ful Jews, in which the soul is kept near to God under the shelter of commandments 
and worship. The shepherd leaves them there : there have only to walk faithfully in 
the way marked out for them ; they will be infallibly led on to a higher state (John 
3 : 21, 5 ; 46, 6 : 45, 7 : 17). While waiting, their moral position is safe enough to 

* Ver. 4. 6 Mjj. several Mnn. add ov after eu$. 






COMMENTARY OH ST. LUKE. 373 

allow the Saviour to consecrate Himself more specially to the souls of those who, 
having broken with the covenant and its means of grace, are exposed to the most im- 
minent dangers. The anxiety of the shepherd to recover a strayed sheep has more 
than personal interest for its motive. One sheep in a hundred is a loss of too small 
importance, and in any case out of proportion to the pains which he takes. The 
motive which animates him is compassion, Is there, in reality, a creature in the ani- 
mal world more to be pitied than a strayed sheep ? It is destitute both of the instinct 
necessary to find its way, and of every weapon of self-defence. It is a prey to any 
beast which may meet it ; it deserves, as no other being in nature, the name of lost. 
The compassion of the shepherd appears : 1. In his preseverance : he seeks it until 
(ver. 4) ; 2. In his tender care : he layeth it on his shoulders ; 3. In the joy with which 
he takes his burden (kirirldriaLv yaipuv), a joy such that he wishes to share it with 
those who surround him, and that he reckons on receiving their congratulations 
(ver. 6). 

Every touch in this exquisite picture finds its application by means of the situation 
described, vers. 1 and 2. The search for the sheep corresponds with the act which 
the Pharisees blamed : He receiveth sinners, and eateth with them ; the finding, to that 
moment of unspeakable joy, when Jesus sees one of those lost souls returning to 
God ; the tenderness with which the shepherd carries his sheep, to the care which 
divine grace will henceforth take of the soul thus recovered for God ; the joy of the 
shepherd, to that which Jesus, that which God Himself, feels in the salvation of sin- 
ners ; the congratulations of friends and neighbors, to the thanksgivings and praises 
of glorified men and angels. It is to be remarked that the shepherd does not carry 
back the sheep to the pasture, but to his own dwelling. By this touch, Jesus un- 
doubtedly gives us to understand, that the sinners whom He has come to save are 
transported by Him into an order of things superior to that of the theocracy to which 
they formerly belonged — into the communion of heaven represented by the shepherd's 
house (ver. 7). 

Ver. 7 contains the application of the description, or more exactly, the conclusion 
of the argument : " If pity leads you to show such tenderness to a sheep, am 1 wrong 
in showing it to lost souls ? I say unto you, that what I feel and do is what God 
Himself feels and wishes ; and what offends you here below on the earth is what 
causes rejoicing in the heavens. It is for you to judge from this contrast, whether, 
while you have no need perhaps to change your life, you do not need a change of 
heart !" The words : there shall be more joy, are frequently explained anthropopathi- 
cally ; the recovery of a lost object gives us in the first moment a livelier joy than 
anything which we possess without previous loss. If we found this feature in the 
parable, the explanation might be discussed. But it meets us in the application, and 
we cannot see how such a sentiment could be absolutely ascribed to God. We have 
just seen that the state of the recovered sinner is really superior to that of the believ- 
ing Israelite. The latter, without having to charge himself with gross disorders 
(jiETavoeiv, to repent, in the sense of those to whom Jesus is speaking), has never- 
theless one decisive step more to take, in order that his salvation may be con- 
summated, and that God may rejoice fully on his account ; that is, to recognize his 
inward sin, to embrace the Saviour, and to be changed in heart. Till then his regu- 
lated walk within the bosom of the ancient covenant is only provisional, like the 
whole of that covenant itself. It may easily happen that, like the Pharisees, 
such a man should end by rejecting real salvation, and so x>erishing. How should 



374 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

heaven rejoice over a state so imperfect, with a joy like that which is awakened 
among its inhabitants by the sight of a sinner really saved ? It is evident that in this 
saying we must take the word just (as well as the word repent) in the sense given to 
it by the interlocutors of Jesus, that relative meaning which we have already found, 
vers. 31, 32 : the just, Levitically and theocratically speaking. This righteousness is 
nothing ; it is the directest way to conduct to true righteousness ; but on condition 
that a man does not rest in it. It thus affords a certain occasion for joy in heaven — 
this is implied in the comparative, joy more than . . . — but less joy, however, 
than the salvation of a single soul fully realized. That is already evident from the 
contrast established by this verse between the joy of heaven and the discontent of the 
Pharisees on occasion of the same event (ver. 1). The I say unto you has here, as 
eve^where, a special solemnity. Jesus speaks of heavenly things as a witness (John 
3 : 11) and as an interpreter of the thoughts of God. The words in heaven embrace 
God and the beings who surround Him, those who are represented in the parable by 
the friends and neighbors. The conjunction fj supposes a [laXkoi) which is not ex- 
pressed. This form is explained by the blending of two ideas : " there is joy" (hence 
the absence of iiuXkov), " there is yet more than . . ."(and hence the rj). This 
form delicately expresses the idea indicated above, that there is also a certain satisfac- 
tion in heaven on account of the righteousness of sincere Israelites. How can one 
help being struck with the manner in which Jesus, both in this parable and the two 
following, identifies His feelings and conduct absolutely with the feelings and the 
action of God Himself ? The shepherd seeking, the woman finding, the father wel- 
coming — is it not in His person that God accomplishes all those divine works? 

This parable is placed by Matthew in the great discourse of chap. 18, andr-Bleek 
cannot help acknowledging — because of an association of ideas belonging purely to 
the evangelist himself. Indeed, the application which he makes of the lost sheep to 
the little ones (vers. 1-6 and 10 ; ver. 11 is an interpolation) is certainly not in keeping 
with the original sense of this parable. The original reference of this description to 
lost sinners, as Holtzmann says in the same connection, has been preserved by Luke. 
But how in this case are we to explain how Matthew has wrested the parable from 
its original meaning if he copied the same document as Luke (A, according to Holtz- 
mann) ? Besides, how comes it that Matthew omits the following parable, that of the 
drachma, which Luke, according to this critic, takes, as well as the preceding, from 
the common document ? 

Vers. 8-10.* The Lost Drachma. The anxiety of the woman to find her lost piece 
of money certainly does not proceed from a feeling of pity ; it is self-interest which 
leads her to act. She had painfully earned it, and had kept it in reserve for some 
important purpose ; it is a real loss to her. Here is divine love portrayed from an en- 
tirely different side. The sinner is not only, in the eyes of God, a suffering being, 
like the sheep on whom He takes pity ; he is a precious being, created in His image, 
to whom He has assigned a part in the accomplishment of His plans. A lost man is 
a blank in His treasury. Is not this side of divine love, rightly understood, still more 
striking than the preceding ? 

The general features, as well as the minutest details, of the descriptions are fitted to 
bring into prominence this idea of the value which God attaches to a lost soul. Gene- 
ral features : 1. The idea of loss (ver. 8a) ; 2. The persevering care which the woman 

* Ver. 8. ». B. L. X. 10 Mnn., eos ov instead of eu; otov. Ver. 9. 6 Mjj. 25 Mnn., 
cvynaTiei instead of avyKaXtirai. 



' 



C03OIENTAKY ON ST. LUKE. 315 

expends in seeking the drachma (ver. 86) ; 3. Her overflowing joy when she has found 
it (ver. 9). Details : The woman has laboriously earned this small sum, and saved it 
only at the cost of many privations, and for some urgent necessity. Jesus leaves out 
the H vfitiv, of you, of ver. 4. Perhaps there were none but men in the throng, or if 
otherwise, He was addressing them only. For the number 100, ver. 4, He substitutes 
the number 10 ; the loss of one in 10 is more serious than of one in 100. The drachma 
was worth about eight pence. It was the price of a full day's work. Comp. Matt. 
20 : 2, where the master agrees with the laborers for a penny (a sum nearly equivalent 
to eight pence) a day, and Rev. 6 : 6. With what minute pains are the efforts of this 
woman described, and what a charming interior is the picture of her persevering 
search ! She lights her lamp ; for in the East the apartment has no other light than 
that which is admitted by the door ; she removes every article of furniture, and 
sweeps the most dusty corners. Such is the image of God coming down in the per- 
son of Jesus into the company of the lowest among sinners, following "them to the 
very dens of the theocracy, with the light of divine truth. The figure of the sheep 
referred rather to the publicans ; and that of the drachma applies rather to the second 
class mentioned in ver. 1, the ufiaprcj/.o! , beings plunged in vice. 

In depicting the joy of the woman (ver. 9), Luke substitutes the Middle 
ovyicaXeiTcu, slie callelh to herself, for the Active avyKaXei, she calleth, ver. 6 ; the Alex, 
have ill-advisedly obliterated this shade. It is not, as in the preceding parable, the 
object lost which profits by the finding ; it is the woman herself, who had lost some- 
thing of her own ; and so she claims to be congratulated for herself ; hence the Mid- 
dle. This shade of expression reflects the entire difference of meaning between the 
two parables. It is the same with another slight modification. Instead of the ex- 
pression of ver. 6 : " For I have found my sheep which was lost ( rd a-rroAuAoi)," the 
woman says here : " the piece which I had lost (?)v anuAeoa)" ; the first phrase 
turned attention to the sheep and its distress ; the second attracts our interest to the 
woman, disconsolate about her loss. What grandeur belongs to the picture of this 
humble rejoicing which the poor woman celebrates with her neighbors, when it 
becomes the transparency through which we get a glimpse of God Himself, rejoicing 
with His elect and His angels over the salvation of a single sinner, even the chief ! 
The evotzlov tuv ayy. , in the pi*esence of the angels, may be explained in two ways : 
either by giving to the vfov&joy the meaning subject of joy — in that case, this saying 
refers directly to the joy of the angels themselves — or by referring the word x a P<* to 
the joy of God which breaks forth in presence of the angels, and in which they par- 
ticipate. The first sense is the more natural. 

But those two images, borrowed from the animal and inanimate world, remain too 
far beneath their object. They do not furnish Jesus with the means of displaying 
the full riches of feeling which filled the heart of God toward the sinner, nor of un- 
veiling the sinner's inner history in the drama of conversion. For that,* He needed an 
image borrowed from the domain of moral and sensitive nature, the sphere of human 
life. The word which sums up the first two parables is grace ; that which sums up 
the third is faith. 

Vers. 11-32. The Child lost and found. This parable consists of two distinct de- 
scriptions, which form the counterpart of one another, that of the younger son (vers. 
11-24), and that of the elder son (vers. 25-32). By the second, Jesus returns com- 
pletely, as we shall see, to the historical situation described vers. 1, 2, and the scene 
is closed. 



376 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

Vers. 11-24. The younger Son. This first part of the parable embraces four repre- 
sentations corresponding to the four phases of the converted sinner's life : 1st. Sin 
(vers. 11-13) ; 2d. Misery (vers. 14-16) ; dd. Conversion (vers. 17-20a) ; 4th. Res- 
toration (vers. 205-24). 

Vers. 11-13.* Jesus discontinues the interrogative form used in the two previous 
cases : we have no more an argument ; we have a narrative, a real parable. The 
three persons composing the family represent God and His people. In accordance 
with vers. 1, 2, the elder son, the representative of the race, the prop of the gens, and 
as such more deeply attached than the younger to the land of his household hearth, 
personifies the Israelites who were Levitically irreproachable, and especially the 
Pharisees. The younger, in whose case the family bond is weaker, and whom this 
very circumstance renders more open to the temptation of breaking with it, repre- 
sents those who have abandoned Jewish legalism, publicans and people of immoral 
lives. His»demand for his goods is most probably to be explained by the fact that 
the elder received as his inheritance a double share of the patrimonial lands, the 
younger members a single share (see at 12 : 13). The latter then desired that his 
father, anticipating the division, should give him the equivalent of his portion in 
money, an arrangement in virtue of which the entire domain, on the father's death, 
would come to the elder. Two things impel him to act thus : the air of the pater- 
nal home oppresses him, he feels the constraint of his father's presence ; then the 
world without attracts him, he hopes to enjoy himself. But to realize his wishes, he 
needs two things-r-freedom and money. Here is the image of a heart swayed by 
licentious appetites ; God is the obstacle in its way, and freedom to do anything ap- 
pears to it as the condition of happiness. Money ought not to be taken as a figure 
applied to the talents and graces which the sinner has received ; it simply represents 
here the power of satisfying one's tastes. In the father's consenting to the guilty 
wish of his son, a very solemn thought is expressed, that of the sinner's abandon- 
ment to the desires of his own heart, the irapa(h66vat rals sTuQv/uiaiS (RomXl : 24, 26, 
28), the ceasing on the part of the Divine Spirit to strive against the inclinations of a 
spoiled heart, which can only be cured by the bitter experiences of sin. God gives 
such a man over to his folly. The use which the sinner makes of his sadly-acquired 
liberty is described in ver. 13. All those images of sin blended in many respects, so 
far as the sinners present were concerned, with actual facts. The far country to 
which the son flies is the emblem of the state of a soul which has so strayed that the 
thought of God no longer even occurs to it. The complete dissipation of his goods 
represents the carrying out of man's liberty to its furthest limits. Manpdv is not an 
adjective, but an adverb (ver. 20, 7 : 6, etc). 

Vers. 14-16.f The iibeity of self -enjoyment is not unlimited, as the sinner would 
fain think ; it has limits of two kinds : the one pertaining to the individual himself, 
such as satiety, remorse, the feeling of destitution, and abjectness resulting from vice 
(when he had spent all) ; the other arising from certain unfavorable outward circum- 
stances, here represented by the famine which occurs at this crisis, that is, domestic 
or public calamities which complete the subduing of the heart which has been already 
overwhelmed, and further, the absence of all divine consolation. Let those two 
causes of misery coincide, and wretchedness is at its height. Then happens what 

* Ver. 12. & c . A. B. L., o Ss instead of mi % 

\ Ver. 14. &. A. B. D. L. 3 Mnn., taxvpa instead of toxvpoS. Ver. 16. &. B. D. L. 
R, some Mnn. Syr cur , It ali< *., x°P raa ^V va ^ f * instead of yefitaat, rr\v KoiKiav avrov an-o, 



<ft 



COMMENTAKY OS ST. LUKE. 377 

Jesus calls vorepeloQai, to be in want, the absolute void of a heart which has sacrificed 
everything for pleasure, and which has nothing left but suffering. We can hardly 
avoid seeing, in the ignoble dependence into which this young Jew falls under a 
heathen master, an allusion to the position of the publicans who were engaged in the 
service of the Roman power. But the general idea which corresponds to this touch 
is that of the degrading dependence, in respect of the world, to which the vicious 
man always finds himself reduced in the end. He sought pleasure, he finds pain ; he 
wished freedom, he gets bondage. The word kiwA/Jfirj has in it something abject ; 
the unhappy wretch is a sort of appendage to a strange personality. To feed swine, 
the last business for a Jew. Kepdnov denotes a species of coarse bean, used in the 
East for fattening those animals. At ver. 16, the Alex. Mjj. are caught in the very 
act of purism ; men of delicate taste could not bear the gross expression, to fill the belly 
tcith . . . There was therefore substituted in the public reading the more genteel 
term, to satisfy himself with . . . ; and this correction has passed into the Alex, 
text. The act expressed by the received reading is that, not of relishing food, but 
merely of filling a void. The smallest details are to the life in this portraiture. Dur- 
ing this time of famine, when the poor herdsman's allowance did not suffice to ap- 
pease his hunger, he was reduced to covet the coarse bean with which the herd was 
carefully fattened, when he drove it home : the swine were in reality more precious 
than he. They sold high, an image of the contempt and neglect which the profligate 
experiences from that very world to which he has sacrificed the most sacred feelings. 
Vers. 17-20&.* This representation, which depicts the conversion of the sinner, 
includes two things, repentance (ver. 17) and faith (vers. 18-20a). The words, when 
he came to himself, ver. 17, denote a solemn moment in human life, that in which 
the heart, after a long period of dissipation, for the first time becomes self-collected. 
The heart is God's sanctuary. To come to ourselves is therefore to find God. Re- 
pentance is a change of feeling ; we find it fully depicted in the regret which the 
sinner feels for that from which he has fled (the father's house), and in that horror 
which fills him at that which he sought so ardently (the strange land). As to the 
mercenaries whom he envies, might they not represent those heathen proselytes who 
had a place, although a very inferior one (the outer court), in the temple, and who 
might thus from afar take part in the worship ; advantages from which the publi- 
cans, so long as they kept to their profession, were debarred by the excommunication 
which fell on them. From this change of feeling there springs a resolution (ver. 18), 
which rests on a remnant of confidence in the goodness of his father ; this is the 
dawn of faith. Did we not recollect that we are yet in the parable, the meaning of 
the words before thee would appear to blend with that of the preceding, against 
heaven. But in the image adopted the two expressions have a distinct meaning. 
Heaven is the avenger of all holy feelings when outraged, and particularly of filial 
devotion when trampled under foot. The young man sinned before his father at the 
time when, the latter beholding him with grief, he defied his last look, and obstinately 
turned his back on him. The possibility of an immediate and entire restoration does 
not enter his mind. He is ready to take the position of a servant in the house where 
he lived as a son, but where he shall have at least wherewith to satisfy his hunger. 
Here is portrayed that publican (described in chap. 18) who stood afar off, and dared 

* Ver. 17. 5*. B. L. some Mnn., efyrj instead of etirev. A. B. P., nepiocsvovTai 
instead of Trepiacevovoiv. 6 Mjj. some Mnn. Syr. ltP levi i" e , Vg. add u<5e to Ta/uu, Ver, 
J9. 16 Mjj. 40 Mnn, ItP lert * ue , omit mm before ovketl. 



378 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

not even raise his eyes to God. But the essential fact is, that the resolution once 
taken, he carries it out. Here is faith in its fulness, actually arising, going to God. 
Faith is not a thought or a desire ; it is an act which brings two living beings into 
personal contact. What an impression must have been produced on the publicans 
present by this faithful picture of their past and present experiences ! But how much 
deeper still the emotion which awaits them when they hear Jesus unveiling, in the 
sequel, the feelings and conduct of God Himself toward them ! 

Vers. 206-24.* Free pardon, entire restoration, the joys of adoption — such are the 
contents of these verses. The heart of God overflows in the sayings of Jesus. Every 
word vibrates with emotion, at once the tenderest and the holiest. The father seems 
never to have given up waiting for his son ; perceiving him from afar, he runs to 
meet him. God discerns the faniest sigh after good which breaks forth in a wander- 
er's heart ; and from the moment this heart takes a step toward Him, He takes ten to 
meet it, striving to show it something of His love. This history was exemplified at 
the very moment as between the publicans present and God, who was drawing near 
to them in Jesus. There is a wide difference between the confession uttered by the 
prodigal son, ver. 21, and that which had been extracted from him by the extremity 
of his misery (vers. 18, 19). The latter was a cry of despair ; but now his distress is 
over. It is therefore the cry of repentant love. The terms are the same: I have 
sinned ; but how different is the accent. Luther felt it profoundly ; the discovery of 
the difference between the repentance of fear and that of love was the true principle 
of the Reformation. He cannot come to the end ; the very assurance of pardon pre- 
vents him from finishing and saying, make line as . . ., according to his first pur- 
pose. The Alex, have not understood this omission, and have mistakenly added here 
the last words of ver. 19. 

Pardon involves restoration. No humbling novitiate ; no passing through inferior 
positions. The restoration is as complete as the repentance was sincere and the faith 
profound. In all those touches — the shoes, the robe, the signet ring (the mark of the 
free man, fitted to express an independent will) — a sound exegesis should limit itself 
to finding the expression of the fulness of restoration to the filial standing ; only 
homiletic application may allow itself to go further, though even it should beware of 
falling into a play of wit, as when Jerome and Olshausen see in the robe the right- 
eousness of Christ, in the ring the seal of the 'Holy Spirit, in the shoes the power of 
walking in the ways of God. Others have found in the servants the image of the 
Holy Spirit or of pastors ! The Alex, reject rrjv before 6toXtjv, and that justly. 
There is a gradation : first a robe, in opposition to nakedness ; then, and even ilie best, 
because he who has descended lowest, if he rise again, should mount up highest. In 
the phrase, the fatted calf, ver. 23, the article should be observed. On every farm 
there is always the calf which is fattening for feast days. Jesus knows rural cus- 
toms. Augustine and Jerome find in this calf an indication of the sacrifice of Chri§t ! 
According to the tout ensemble of the picture, which should be our standard in inter- 
preting all the special details, this emblem represents all that is most excellent and 
sweet in the communications of divine grace. The absence of every feature fitted to 

* Ver. 21. 7 Mjj. some Mnn. It. Vg. omit nai before ovketi. $. B. D. U. X. 20 
Mnn. add, after vtog gov, noirjoov pe wS eva tuv juiaOtuv coo. Ver. 22. &. B. L. X. It. 
Vg. add Ta%v (D., ra^ewS) before E^eveyKare. 7 Mjj. (Alex.) omit tjjv before cTokrjv. 
Ver. 23. &. B. L. R. X. It. Vg., (pepere instead of eveynavTet. Ver. 24. 9 Mjj. 30 
Mnn, It. Vg. omit nai before a7ro?iwAw5 qv. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 379 

represent the sacrifice of Christ, is at once explained when we remember that we have 
here to do with a parable, and that expiation has no place in the relations between 
man and man. By the plural, let us be merry, the father himself takes his share in 
the feast (as in ver. 7). The two parallel clauses of ver. 24 recall the two aspects in 
which sin was presented in the two previous parables ; he was dead relates to the per- 
sonal misery of the sinner (the lost sheep) ; lie was lost, to the loss felt by God Himself 
(the lost drachma). The parable of the prodigal son combines those two points of 
view : the son was lost, and the father had lost something. With the words, and they 
began to be merry, the parable reaches the exact point at which things were at the 
moment when Christ uttered it (vers. 1 and 2). 

Vers. 25-32. Tlie elder Son. This part embraces : 1st. The interview of the elder 
son with the servant (vers. 25-28«) ; 2d. His interview with his father (vers. 286-32). 
Jesus here shows the Pharisees their murmurings put in action, and constrains them 
to feel their gravity. 

Vers. 25-28a.* While the house is filled with mirth, the elder son is at work. 
Here is the image of the Pharisee busied with his rites, while repentant sinners are 
rejoicing in the serene sunshine of grace. Every free and joyous impulse is abhor- 
rent to the formal spirit of pharisaism. This repugnance is described in ver. 26. 
Rather than go straight into the house, the elder son begins by gathering information 
from a servant ; he does not feel himself at home in the house (John 8 : 35). The ser- 
vant in his answer substitutes for the expressions of the father : he was dead . . ., 
lost . . ., these simple words : he is come safe and sound. This is the fact, without 
the father's moral appreciation, which it is not fitting in him to appropriate. Every- 
thing in the slightest details of the picture breathes the most exquisite delicacy. 
The refusal to enter corresponds to the discontent of the Pharisees, who.do not under- 
stand being saved in common with the vicious. 

Vers. 285-32.f This interview contains the full revelation of pharisaic feeling, 
and brings into view the contrast between it and the fatherly heart of God. The 
procedure of the father, who steps out to his son and invites him to enter, is realized 
in the very conversation which Jesus, come from God, holds with them at the mo- 
ment. The answer of the son (vers. 29 and 30) includes two accusations against his 
father : the one bears on his way of acting toward himself (ver. 29), the other on his 
conduct in respect of his other son (ver. 30). The contrast is meant to bring out the 
partiality of the father. The blind and innocent self-satisfaction which forms the 
heart of pharisaism could not be better depicted than in the words : " neither trans- 
gressed I at any time thy commandment ;" and the servile and mercenary position of 
the legal Jew in the theocracy, than thus : " Lo ! these many years do 1 serve thee." 
Bengel makes the simple observation on these words : servus erat. What in reality 
was his father to him ? A master ! He even counts the years of his hard servitude : 
There are so many years ! . . . Such is man's view of accomplishing good under 
the law : a labor painfully carried through, and which consequently merits payment. 
But by its very nature it is totally deprived of the delights which belong only to the 

* Ver. 26. Avrov after itaiScov, in ? (not S e ), is only supported by some Mnn. 

f Ver. 28. The mss. are divided between t/SeXev (T. R) and i/JsAytiev, and be- 
tween o ovv (T. R) and o 6e (Alex.). Ver. 29. 7 Mjj. add avrov to rr» itarpi. 
Ver. 30. Instead of rov juo6x ov rov 6itevtov, 6 Mjj., rov 6itevtov f.io6xov. Ver. 
32. Instead of arE^r/6Ev (T. R). 8* B. L. R A. Syr 8Ch , e^ev. &. B. X. several 
Mnn. It. omit xoa, and A. B. D. L. R. X. ijv, before aito\Go\u)S. 



380 COMMEHTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

sphere of free love ; it has no other idea of them than that which it gets by seeing 
those joys of the reconciled sinner, by which it is scandalized. The joy which is 
wanting to it is this kid to make merry with its friends, which has never been granted 
to it. 

With the hard and ill-paid labor of legal obedience he contrasts (ver. 30) the life of 
his brother, infcrry in sin, happier still, if possible, in the hour of his return and 
pardon. The meaning is, that in the eyes of pharisaism, as virtue is a task, sin is a 
pleasure ; and hence there ought to be a payment for the first, an equivalent of pain 
for the second. The father, by refusing to the one his just reward, by adding in the 
case of the other joy to joy, the enjoyments of the paternal home to those of de- 
bauchery, has shown his preference for the sinner and his sympathy with sin. Thy 
son, says the elder son, instead of : my brotlier. Pie would express at once the parti- 
ality of his father and his own dislike to the sinner. Do not those sayings which Jesus 
puts into the mouth of the righteous legalist, contain the keenest criticism of a state 
of* soul wherein men discharge duty all the while abhorring it, and wherein while 
avoiding sin, they .thirst after it ? The particular /xerd itopvcov is a stroke of the 
pencil added to the picture of ver. 13 by the charitable hand of the elder brother. 

The father's answer meets perfectly the two accusations of his son. Ver. 31 replies 
to ver. 29 ; ver. 32 to ver. 30. The father first clears himself from the charge of in- 
justice to the son who is speaking to him; and with what condescension! "My 
child (rs'xvov)." This form of address has in it something more loving even than 
vie, son. Then he reminds him that his life with him might "have been a feast all 
along. There was no occasion, therefore, to make a special feast for him. And what 
good would a particular gift serve, when everything in the house was continually at 
his disposal. The meaning of this remarkable saying is, that nothing prevented the 
believing Israelite from already enjoying the sweets of divine communion — a fact 
proved by the Psalms ; comp. e.g. Ps. 23 and 63. St. Paul himself, who ordinarily 
presents the law as the instrument of condemnation, nevertheless x derives the formula 
of grace from a saying of Moses (Rom. 10 : 6-8), proving that in\his eyes grace is 
already in the law, through the pardon which accompanies sacrifice and the Holy 
Spirit granted to him who asks Him (Ps. 51 : 9-14) ; and that when he speaks of the 
law as he ordinarily does, it is after the manner of his adversaries, isolating the com- 
mandment from grace. In the same way as ver. 31 presents theocratic fidelity as a 
happiness, and not a task, so ver. 32 reveals sin as a misery, and not as an advantage. 
There was therefore ground for celebrating a feast on the return of one who had just 
escaped from so great a misery, and by his arrival had restored the life of the family 
in its completeness. Thy brother, says the father ; it is the answer to the thy son of 
ver. 30. He reminds him of the claims of fraternal love. Here Jesus stops ; He 
does not say what part the elder son took. It lay with the Pharisees themselves, by 
the conduct which they would adopt, to decide this question and finish the narrative. 

The Tubingen school (Zeller, Volkmar, Hilgenfeld, not Kostlin) agree in regard- 
ing the elder son, not as the pharisaic party, but as the Jewish people in general ; 
the younger son, not as the publicans, but Gentile nations. " The elder son is un- 
mistakably the image of Judaism, which deems that it possesses special merit because 
of its fidelity to the one true God. The younger son ... is the not less easily 
recognized portrait of Gentile humanit3 T given up to polytheism and immorality. 
The discontent of the first, on seeing the reception granted to his brother, represents 
the jealousy of the Jews on account of the entrance of the Gentiles into the Church " 
(Hilgenfeld, " die Evangel.," p. 198). It would follow, then : 1. That this parable 



■/( 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 381 

had been invented and put into the mouth of Jesus by Luke, with the view of sup- 
porting the system of his master Paul ; 2. That to this invention he had added a sec- 
ond, intended to accredit the former, that of the historical situation described vers. 1 
and 2. But, 1. Is it conceivable that the evangelist, who marked out his own pro- 
gramme for himself, 1 : 1-4, should take the liberty of treating his materials in so free 
and easy a style 2. Have we not found in this description a multitude of delicate 
allusions to the historical surroundings amid which, the parable is reputed to have 
been uttered, and which would not be applicable in the sense proposed (vers. 15, 17, 
etc.) ? 3. How from this parable St. Paul might have extracted the doctrine of justi- 
fication by faith, is easy to understand. But that this order was inverted, that the 
parable was invented as an after-thought to give a body to the Pauline doctrine, is 
incompatible with the absence of every dogmatic element in the exposition. Would 
not the names of repentance, faith, justification, and the idea of expiation, have been 
infallibly introduced, if it had been the result of a dogmatic study contemporary with 
the ministry of Paul ? 4. We have seen that the description finds its perfect explana- 
tion, that there remains not a single obscure point in the light in which it is placed by 
Luke. It is therefore arbitrary to seek another setting for it. The prejudice which 
has led the Tubingen school to this contra-textual interpretation is evident. Keim, 
while discovering, like this school, Paulinism as the basis of the parable (p. 80), 
thinks that here we have one of the passages wherein the author, with the view of 
conciliating, more or less abjures his master, St. Paul. The evangelist dares not 
wholly disapprove the Judeo- Christianity which holds by the commandments ; he 
praises it even (ver. 31). He only demands that it shall authorize the entrance of the 
Gentiles into the Church ; and on this condition he lets its legal spirit pass. We 
should thus have. simply the juxtaposition of the two principles which conflicted with 
one another in the apostolic churches. But, 1. In this attempt at conciliation, the 
elder son would be completely sacrificed to the younger ; for the latter is seated at 
table in the house, the former is without, and we remain in ignorance as to whether 
he will re-enter. And this last would represent the apostolic Christianity which 
founded the Church ! -2. Adopting biblical premises, ver. 31 can easily be applied to 
the Mosaic system faithfully observed, and that, as we have seen, according to the 
view of St. Paul himself. 3. It belonged to the method of progressive transition, 
which Jesus always observed, to seek to develope withi^i the bosom of the Mosaic 
dispensation, and without ever attacking it, the new principle which was to succeed 
it, and the germ of which was already deposited in it. Jesus did not wish to sup- 
press anything which He had not completely replaced and surpassed. He therefore 
accepted the ancient system, while attaching to it the new. The facts pointed out by 
Keim are fully explained by this situation. 

Holtzmann thinks that our parable, which is not found in Matthew, may really be 
only an amplification of that of the two sons, which is found in that evangelist (Matt. 
21 : 28-30). Does not this supposition do too much honor to the alleged amplifier, 
whether Luke or any other ? 

6. The Two Parables on the use of Earthly Goods : chap. 16. Those two remark- 
able passages are peculiar to Luke, though taken, according to Holtzmann, from the 
common source A, from which Matthew also borrows. For what reason, on this 
hypothesis, has the latter omitted them ? The second especially (ver. 31 : They have 
Moses and the prophets) was perfectly in keeping with the spirit of this Gospel. Ac- 
cording to Weizsacker, the two parables have undergone very grave modifications in 
the course of successive editions. In his view, the original thought of the parable of 
the unjust steward was this : Beneficence, the means of justification for injustices 
committed by him who shows it. In our Gospel, it is intended to promise to the Gen- 
tiles an entrance into the kingdom of God, as a recompense for their benefits toward 
the lawful heirs of the kingdom. The second parable would also belong in origin to 
the tendency of Ebionite Judeo-Christianity ; it would transform into a description 
the idea of the four beatitudes and four maledictions, which iti Luke open the Sermon 
on the Mount. Later, it became the representation of the rejection of the unbeliev- 



382' COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

ing Jews (the -wicked rich man and his brethren), and of the salvation of the Gentiles 
represented by Lazarus (probably a Gentile, according to ver. 21). "We shall see if 
the interpretation justifies suppositions so violent. 

This piece contains : 1st. The parable of the unjust steward, with accompanying 
reflections (vers. 1-13) ; 2d. Reflections forming an introduction to the parable of the 
wicked rich man, and the parable itself (vers. 14-31). Those two portraits are evi- 
dently the counterparts of one another. The idea common to both is that of the re- 
lation between the use made of earthly goods and man's future beyond the tomb. 
The steward represents the owner who is able to secure his future by a wise use of 
those transitory goods ; the wicked rich man, the owner who compromises his future 
by neglecting this just employment of them. 

1st. Vers. 1-13. The Unjust Steward. Is there a connection between this lesson 
on riches and the preceding ? The formula eXeys d£ nod, and He said also (ver. 1), 
seems to indicate that there is. Olshausen supposes that the disciples (ver. 1) to whom 
the parable is addressed are publicans brought back to God, those recent converts of 
chap. 15, whom Jesus was exhorting to employ wisely the earthly goods which they 
had acquired unjustly. But the expression : to His disciples (ver. 1), refers naturally 
to the ordinary disciples of our Lord. In the sense of Olshausen, some epithet would 
require to have been added. The connection is rather in the keeping up of the con- 
trast between the life of faith and pharisaic righteousness. The two chief sins of the 
Pharisees were pride, with its fruit hypocrisy, and avarice (ver. 14). We see in the 
Sermon on the Mount, which was directed against their false righteousness, how 
Jesus passes directly from the one of those sins to the other (Matt. 6 : 18, 19). This 
is precisely what He does here. He had just been stigmatizing pharisaic pride in the 
person of the elder son. Now this disposition is ordinarily accompanied by that 
proud hardness which characterizes the wicked rich man, as the heart broken by the 
experiences of faith is natutally disposed to the liberal actions of the unjust steward. 
Hence the form : He said to them also. 

And first the parable : vers. 1-9.* In this portraiture, as in some others, Jesus 
does not scruple to use the example of the wicked for the purpose of stimulating His 
disciples. And in fact, in the midst of conduct morally blamable, the wicked often 
display remarkable qualities of activity, prudence, and perseverance, which may 
serve to humble and encourage believers. The parable of the unjust steward is the 
masterpiece of this sort of teaching. 

The rich man of ver. 1 is a great lord living in the capital, far froni his lands, the 
administration of which he has committed to a factor. The latter is not a mere slave, 
as in 12 : 42 ; he is a freeman, and even occupying a somewhat high social position 
(ver. 3). He enjoys very large powers. He gathers in and sells the produce at his 
pleasure. Living himself on the revenue of the domain, it is his duty to transmit to 
his master the surplus of the income. Olshausen alleges that this master, in the view 
of Jesus, represents the prince of this world, the devil, and that only thus can the 
eulogium be explaiued which he passes (ver. 8) on the conduct of his knavish servant. 
This explanation is incompatible with the deprivation of the steward pronounced by 

* Ver. 1. &. B. D. L. R. omit avrov after /j-aQr/raS. Ver. 2. 7 Mjj. omit 6ov 
after oixovouiaS. &. B. D. P., dvvrj instead of 8vvrf6r/. Ver. 4. &. B. D. some 
Mnn. Syr. add sx, and L. X. ltP 1 "^, Vg. , ano before rr/S. Vers. 6, 7. J*. B. D. 
L., ra ypajujuara instead of to ypajujaa. Ver. 9. 8 Mjj. some Mnn. Syr sch . It ali< i., 
anXnt-q or axXeim] instead of enXiTtrfzE, which the T. R. reads with & ca F. P. U, 



COMMENTARY ON" ST. LUKE. 383 

the master, ver. 2, and which, in the view of our Lord, can only denote death. It is 
not Satan who disposes of human life. Satan is not even the master of riches ; does 
not God say, Hag. 2:8: " The silver is mine, and the gold is mine ?" Comp. Ps. 
24 : 1. Finally, it is not to Satan, certainly, that we shall have to give account of 
our administration of earthly goods ! Our Lord clearly gives out Himself as the per- 
son represented by the master, vers. 8 and 9 : The Master commended . . .; and 1 also 
say unto you. Again, could we admit that in ver. 12 the expression : faithful in that 
which is another man's (your master's), should signify : " faithful to that which the 
devil has committed to you of his goods?" Meyer had modified this explanation of 
Olshausen : the master, according to him, is wealth personified, mammon. But how 
are we to attribute the personal part which the master in the parable plays to this 
abstract being, wealth ? The master can only represent God Himself, Him who 
maketh poor and maketh rich, who bringeth low and lifteth up. In relation to his 
neighbor, every man may be regarded as the proprietor of his goods ; but in relation 
to God, no one is more than a tenant. This great and simple thought, by destroying 
the right of property relatively to God, gives it its true basis in the relation between 
man and man. Every man should respect the property of his neighbor, just because 
it is not the latter's property, but that of God, who has entrusted it to him. In the 
report made to the master about the delinquencies of his steward, we are to see the 
image of that perfect knowledge which God has of all human unfaithfulness. To 
waste the goods of God, means, after having taken out of our revenue what is de- 
manded for our maintenance, instead of consecrating the remainder to the service 
of God and of His cause, squandering it on our pleasure, or hoarding it up for our- 
selves. Here we have the judgment of Jesus on that manner of acting which appears 
to us so natural : it is to forget that we are but stewards, and to act as proprietors. 

The saying of the master to the steward (ver. 2) does not include a call to clear 
himself ; it is a sentence of deprivation. His guilt seems thoroughly established. 
The account which he is summoned to render is the inventory of the property con- 
fided to him, to be transmitted to his successor. What corresponds to this depriva- 
tion is evidently the event by which God takes away from us the free disposal of the 
goods which He had entrusted to us here below, that is, death. The sentence of de- 
privation pronounced beforehand denotes the awakening of the human conscience 
when it is penetrated by this voice of God : " Thou must die ; thou shalt give ac- 
count." $Govrf6ai is stronger than xaXi6ai : " speaking with the tone of a master." 
In the phrase ri rovro, ri may be taken as an exclamation : "How happens it 
that I hear this !" or interrogatively, with rovro in apposition : ' What do 1 hear of 
thee, to wit this ?' ' The accusation which we should expect to follow is understood. 
The present dvvg, in some Alex., is that of the immediate future. 

The words : lie said within himself, have some relation to those of 15 : 17 : when he 
came to himself. It is an act of recollection after a life passed in insensibility. The 
situation of the man is critical. Of the two courses which present themselves to his 
mind, the first, digging, and the second, begging, are equally intolerable to him, the 
one physically, the other morally. All at once, after long reflection, he exclaims, as 
if striking his forehead : I have it ! "Eyvoov, 1 ham come to see (ver. 4). He starts 
from the sentence as from a fact which is irrevocable : when 1 am put out. But has he 
not those goods, which he is soon to hand over to another, in his hands for some time 
yet ? May he not hasten to use them in such a way that he shall get advantage from 
them when he shall have them no more, by making sure, for example, of a refuge 



384 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

for the time when he shall be houseless ? When man thinks seriously of his ap- 
proaching death, it is impossible for him not to be alarmed at that deprivation which 
awaits him, and at the state of nakedness which will, follow. Happy if in that hour 
he can take a firm resolution. For some time yet he has in his hands the goods of 
his divine Master, which death is about to wrest from him. Will it not be wisdom 
on his part so to use them during the brief moments •when he has them yet at his dis- 
posal, that they shall bear interest for him when they shall be his no more ? 

This steward, who will soon be homeless, knows people who have houses : " Let 
us then make friends of them ; and when I shall be turned to the street, more than 
one house shall be open to receive me." The debtors, whom he calls to him with 
this view, are merchants who are in the habit of coming to get their supplies from 
him, getting credit probably till they have made their own sales, and making their 
payments afterward. The Heb. fidroS, the bath, contains about sixty pints. The 
gift of fifty of those laths might mount up to the sum of some thousands of francs. 
The x6po<s, corns (homer), contains ten ephahs ; and the value of twenty homers might 
rise to some hundreds of francs. The difference which the. steward makes between 
the two gifts is remarkable ; it contains a proof of discernment. He knows his men 
as the saying is, and can calculate the degree of liberality which he must show to 
each to gain a like result, that is to say, the hospitality he expects to receive from 
them until it be repaid. Jesus here describes alms in the most piquant form. Does 
a rich man, for example, tear up the bill of one of his poor debtors ? He onry does 
what the steward does here. « For if all we have is God's, supposing we lend any- 
thing, it it out of His property that we have taken it ; and if we give it away, it is 
with His goods {that which is another's, ver. 12) that we are generous in so acting. 
Beneficence from this point of view appears as a sort of holy unfaithfulness. By 
means of it we prudently make for ourselves, like the steward, personal friends, while 
we use wealth which, strictly speaking, is that of our Master. But differently from 
the steward, we do so holily, because we know that we are not acting without the 
knowledge and contrary to the will of the divine Owner, but that, on the other hand, 
we are entering into His purposes of love, and that He rejoices to see us thus using 
the goods which He has committed to us with that intention. This unfaithfulness is 
faithfulness (ver. 12). 

The commendation which the master gives the steward (ver. 8) is not absolute. 
It has a twofold limitation, first in the word rrji ddiuias, " the unjust steward," an 
epithet which he must certainly put in the master's mouth, and then in the explana- 
tory phrase : " because he had done wisely." The meaning of the commendation, 
then, is to this effect : " Undoubtedly a clever man ! It is only to be regretted that 
he has not shown as much probit} r as prudence." Thus, even though beneficence 
chiefly profits him who exercises it, God rejoices to see this virtue. And while He 
has no favor for the miser who hoards His goods, or for the egoist who squanders 
them, He approves the man who disposes of them wisely in view of his eternal future. 
Weizsacker holds that the eulogium given by the master should be rejected from the 
parable. Had he understood it better, he would not have proposed this suppression, 
which would be a mutilation. 

It is with the second part of ver. 8 that the application begins. " Wisely: Yes, 
adds Jesus, it is quite true. For there is more wisdom found among the children of 
this world in their mode of acting toward the children of the generation to which 
they belong, than among the children of light in their conduct toward those who 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 385 

• 

belong to theirs. " Aiaov ovroi, this age (world); the period of history anterior to 
the coming of the kingdom of God. $oaS ■. the domain of the higher life into which 
Jesus introduces His disciples, and in which the brightness of divine wisdom reigns 
Both spheres have their own population, and every inhabitant of the one or the other 
is surrounded by a certain number of contemporaries like himself, who form his 
yeved or generation. Those belonging to the first sphere use every means for their 
own interest, to strengthen the bonds, which unite them to their contemporaries of 
the same stamp. But those of the second neglect this natural measure of prudence. 
They forget to use God's goods to form .bonds of love to the contemporaries who 
share their character, and who might one day give them a full recompense, when 
they themselves shall want everything and these shall have abundance. Ver. 9 
finishes the application. The words : and 1 also say unto you, correspond to these : 
and the Lord commended (ver. 8). As in chap. 15 Jesus had identified Himself with 
the Father who dwells in heaven, so in this saying He identifies Himself with the in- 
visible owner of all things : and I. Jesus means : Instead of hoarding up or enjoying 
— a course which will profit you nothing when, on the other side of the tomb, you 
will find yoursel ves in your turn poor and destitute of everything — hasten to make 
for yourselves, with the goods of anothei (God's), personal friends (savroiS, to your- 
selves), who shall then be bound to you by gratitude, and share with you their well- 
being. By a course of beneficence make haste to transform into a bond of love the 
base metal of which death will soon deprive you. What the steward did in his sphere 
in relation to people of his own quality, see that you do in yours toward those who 
belong like you to the world to come. The Alex, reading enMitr] (juajiGovaS), would 
signify: " that when money shall fail you (by the event of death)." The T. R. : 
'tHkiTtr}TE, when ye shall fail, refers to the cessation of life, embracing privation of 
everything of which it is made up. 

The friends, according to Meyer and Ewald, are the angels, who, affected by the 
alms of the beneficent man, are attached to him, and assist him at the time of his 
passing into eternity. But according to the parable, the friends can only be men 
who have been succored by him on the earth, poor here below, but possessing a share 
in the everlasting inheritance. What service can they render to the dying disciple ? 
Here is perhaps the most difficult question in the explanation of the parable. Love 
testified and experienced establishes between beings a strict moral unity. This is 
clearly seen in the relation between Jesus and men. May not the disciple who 
reaches heaven without having gained here below the degree of development which 
is the condition of full communion with God, receive the increase of spiritual life, 
which is yet wanting to him, by means of those grateful spirits with whom he shared 
his temporal goods here below ? (Comp. Rom. 15 : 27 aud 1 Cor. 9 : 11.) Do we not 
already see on the earth the poor Christian, who is assisted by a humane, but in a 
religious point of view defective, rich man, by his prayers, by the overflowing of his 
gratitude, and the edification which he affords him, requiting his benefactor infinitely 
more and better than he receives from him ? Almsgiving is thus found to be the most 
prudent investment ; for the communication of love once established by its means, 
enables him who practises it to enjoy provisionally the benefits of a spiritual state far 
superior to that which he has himself reached. A similar thought is found in 14 : 13, 
14. But if this explanation seems to leave something to desire, we must fall back on 
sayings such as these : " He that hath pity upon the poor, lendeth unto the Lord." 
" Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have 



386 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

done it unto me." It is Jesus, it is God Himself, who become our debtors by the 
assistance which we grant to those who are the objects of their love. And would 
such friends be useless in the hour of our dissolution ? To receive is not to intro- 
duce. On the contrary, the first of these two terms assumes that admission is already 
adjudged. Faith, which alone opens heaven, is supposed iD the hearers whom Jesus 
is addressing in the parable : they are disciples, ver. 1. Conversion, the fruit of 
faith, is equally implied, vers. 3 and 4. And since the disciple whom Jesus de- 
scribes has chosen believers as the special objects of his liberality, he must to a cer- 
tain degree be a believer himself. 

The poetical expression eternal habitations (tents) is borrowed from patriarchal 
history. The tents of Abraham and Isaac under the oaks of Mamre are transferred 
in thought to the life to come, which is represented under the image of a glorified 
Canaan. What is the future of poetry but the past idealized ? It is less natural to 
think, with Meyer, of the tents of Israel in the desert. We may here compare the 
TtoXX.a.1 fxovai, the many mansions, in the Father's house, John 14 : 3. There re- 
mains to be explained the phrase 6 /.tajnGovdS rjj$ dSixiaS, the mammon of unright- 
eousness. The word juajuaoraS is not, as has often been said, the name of an oriental 
divinity, the god of money. It denotes, in Syriac and Phoenician, money itself (see 
Bleek on Matt. 6 : 24). The Aramaic name is ]•)£)£, and, with the article, ^jiqq. 
The epithet unrighteous is taken by many commentators simply to mean, that the ac- 
quisition of fortune is most frequently tainted with sin ; according to Bleek and 
others, that sin readily attaches to the administration of it. But these are only acci- 
dental circumstances ; the context points to a more satisfactory explanation. The 
ear of Jesus must have been constantly offended with that sort of Jreckless language 
in which men indulge without scruple : my fortune, my lands, my house. He who 
felt to the quick man's dependence on God, saw that there was a usurpation in this 
idea of ownership, a forgetfulness of the true proprietor ; on hearing such language, 
He seemed to see the farmer playing the landlord. It is this sin, or which the natural 
man is profoundly unconscious, which He lays bare in this whole parable, and which 
He specially designates by this expression the unrighteous Mammon. The two, tj}$ 
uditdac, vers. 8 and 9, correspond exactly, and mutually explain one another. It is 
therefore false to see in this epithet, with De Wette, the Tubingen School, Renan, 
etc., a condemnation of property as such. Man's sin does not consist in being, as 
one invested with earthly property, the steward of God, but in forgetting that he is so 
(parable following). 

There is no thought more fitted than that of this parable, on the one hand, to un- 
dermine the idea of merit belonging to almsgiving (what merit could be got out of 
that which is another's ?), and on the other, to encourage us in the practice of that 
virtue which assures us of friends and protectors for the grave moment of our pass- 
ing into the world to come. What on the part of the steward was only wise unfaith- 
fulness, becomes wise faithfulness in the servant of Jesus who acts on acquaintance 
with principle. It dare not be said that Jesus had wit ; but if one could be tempted 
to use the expression at all, it would be here. 

Of the many explanations of this parable which have been proposed, we shall 
merely quote some of the most prominent. Schleiermacher takes the master to be 
the Roman knights who farmed the taxes of Judaea, and sublet them to needy publi- 
cans ; the steward, to be the publicans whom Jesus exhorted to expend on their 
countrymen the goods of which they cleverly cheated those great foreigners. Henri 



/I 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 387 

Bauer sees in the master the Israelitish authorities, and in the unfaithful steward the 
Judeo- Christians, who, without troubling themselves about theocratic prejudices, 
should strive to communicate to the Gentiles the benefits of the covenant. Accord- 
ing to Weizsacker in the original thought of the parable the steward represented a 
Roman magistrate, who, to the detriment of the Jews, had been guilty of maladmin- 
istration, but who thereafter strives to make amends by showing them gentleness and 
liberality. No wonder that from this point of view the critic knows not what to 
make of the eulogium passed by the master on his steward ! But according to him, 
the sense and the image were transformed, and the description became in the hands of 
Luke an encouragement to rich and unbelieving Jews to merit heaven by doing good 
to poor Christians. The arbitrary and forced* character of those explanations is clear 
as the day, and they need no detailed refutation. We are happy that we can agree, 
at least for once, with Hilgenfeld, both in the general interpretation of the parable 
and in the explanation of the sayings which follow (" Die Evangel," p. 199). 

Vers. 10-13.* " He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much ; 
and he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much. 11. If therefore ye have 
not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust that 
which is true ? 12. And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, 
who shall give you that which is your own ? 13. No servant can serve two masters : 
for either he will hate the one, and love the other ; or else he will hold to the one, 
and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Many regard these re- 
flections as arbitrarily placed here by Luke. But whatever Bleek may say, is it not 
just the manner in which we constitute ourselves proprietors of our earthly goods, 
which leads us to make a use of them which is contrary to their true destination ? 
The following piece, therefore, derives its explanation from the parable, and is di- 
rectly connected with it. Ver. 12 (ru akloTpiu) would even be unintelligible apart 
from it. Ver. 10 is a comparison borrowed from common life. From the experience 
expressed in the two parallel propositions of this verse, it follows that a master does 
not think of elevating to a higher position the servant who has abused his confidence 
in matters of less importance. Faithful toward the master, unjust toward men. 

The application of this rule of conduct to believers, vers. 11, 12. The. unrighteous 
mammon is God's money, which man unjustly takes as his own. Faithfulness would 
have implied, above all, the employment of those goods in the service of God ; but 
our deprivation once pronounced (death), it implies their employment in our interest 
rightly understood by means of beneficence. Through lack of this fidelity or wis- 
dom, we establish our own incapacity to administer better goods if they were confided 
to us ; therefore God will not commit them to us. Those goods are called to alrjBivov, 
the true good, that which corresponds really to the idea of good. The contrast has 
misled several commentators to give to the word aSuco; the meaning of deceitful. 
This is to confound the word afyQivoS with dAjyQ^s (veracious). The real good is that 
which can in no case be changed to its opposite. It is not so with money, which is at 
best a provisional good, and may even be a source of evil. This is the application of 
10a ; ver. 12 is that of 105. Earthly goods are called another's good, that is to say, a 
good which strictly belongs to another than ourselves (God). As it is faithfulness to 
God, so it is justice to man, to dispose of them with a view to our poor neighbor. 
That which is our mm denotes the good for which we are essentially fitted, which is 

* Ver. 12. B. L. , to rifxerepov instead* of to vfierepov. 



388 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

the normal completion of our being, the Divine Spirit become our own spirit by entire 
assimilation, or in the words of Jesus, the kingdom prepared for us from the foundation 
of the world. Our Lord's thought is therefore this : God commits to man, during his 
earthly sojourn in the state of probation, goods belonging to Him, which are of less 
value (earthly things) ; and the use, fathful or unfaithful, just or unjust, which we 
make of these settles the question whether our true patrimony (the goods of the Spirit, 
of which the believer himself receives only the earnest here below) shall or shall not 
be granted to him above. Like a rich father, who should trust his son with a domain 
of little value, that he might be trained later in life to manage the whole of his inher- 
itance, thus putting his character to the proof, so God exposes external seeming goods 
of no value to the thousand abuses of our unskilful administration here below, that 
from the use which we make of them there may one day be determined for each of 
us whether we shall be put in possession, or whether we shall be deprived of our true 
eternal heritage— the good which corresponds to our inmost nature. The entire phi- 
losoph} 7 " of our terrestrial existence is contained in these words. 

Ver. 13, which closes this piece, is still connected with the image of the parable ; 
the steward had two masters, whose service he could not succeed in reconciling, the 
owner of the revenue which he was managing, and money, which he was worship- 
ping. The two parallel propositions of this verse are usually regarded as identical in 
meaning and as differing only in the position assigned to each of the two masters suc- 
cessively as the objects of the two opposite feelings. But Bleek justly observes, that 
the absence of the article before ivog in the second proposition seems to forbid our tak- 
ing this pronoun as the simple repetition of the preceding top iva in the first ; he 
therefore gives it a more general sense, the one or tlie other of the two preceding, and 
places the whole difference between the two parallel propositions in the graduated 
meaning of the different verbs employed, holding to being less stroiig than loving, and 
despising less strong than hating. Thus : " He will hate the one &nd love the other ; 
or at least, he will hold more either to the one or other of the two j which will neces- 
sarily lead him to neglect the service of the other." It makes no material difference. 
This verse, whatever the same learned critic may say, concludes this discourse per- 
fectly, and forms the transition to the following piece, in which we find a sincere 
worshipper of Jehovah perishing because he has practically made money his God. 
The place which this verse occupies in Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount (6 : 24) 
is also suitable, but somewhat uncertain, like that of the whole piece of which it 
forms part. 

2d. Vers. 14-31. The Wicked Rich Man. The introduction (vers. 14-18) is com- 
posed of a series of sayings which at first sight appear to have no connection with 
one another. Holtzmann thinks that Luke collects here at random sayings scattered 
throughout the Logia, for which till now he had not found any p/ace. But there are 
only two leading ideas in this introduction ; the rejection of the Pharisees, and the 
permanence of the law. Now these are precisely the two ideas which are exhibited in 
action in the following parable ; the one in the condemnation of the wicked rich man, 
that faithful Pharisee (" father Abraham," vers. 24, 27, 30) ; the other in the manner 
in which Abraham asserts, even in Hades, the imperishable value of the law and the 
prophets. The relation between these two essential ideas of the introduction and of 
the parable is this ; the law on which the Pharisees staked their credit will neverthe- 
less be the instrument of their eternal condemnation. This is exactly what Jesus says 
to the Jews, John 5 : 45 : " There is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 389 

trust." It must be confessed, however, that this introduction, vers. 14-18, has a 
very fragmentary character. It contains the elements of a discourse, rather than the 
discourse itself. But this very fact proves that St. Luke has not taken the liberty 
of composing this introduction arbitrarily and independently of his sources. What 
historian would compose in such a manner ? A discourse invented by the evangelist 
would not have failed to present an evident logical connection, as much as the dis- 
courses which Livy or Xenophon put into the mouth of their heroes. The very 
brokenness suffices to prove that the discourse w T as really held, and existed previously 
to this narrative. 

Vers. 14 and 15.* " The Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things ; 
and they derided Him. 15. And He said unto them, Ye are they which justify your- 
selves before men ; but God knoweth your hearts : for that which is highly esteemed 
among men is abomination in the sight of God." The last words of Jesus on the 
impossibility of combining the service of God and mammon, fell full on the heads of 
the Pharisees, those pretended servants of Jehovah, who nevertheless in their lives 
showed themselves such zealous worshippers of riches (Matt. 6, transition between 
vers. 18, 19). Hence their sneers (inuvxrr/pi^eiv). The poverty of Jesus Himself 
was perhaps the theme of their derision : " It is easy to speak of money with such dis- 
dain . . . when one is destitute as thou art." In His answer (ver. 15), Jesus gives 
them to understand that the judgment of God is regulated by another standard than 
that of the men who are at their side. It is at the heart that God looks ; and the 
reign of a single passion, such as that avarice which devours them, suffices to render 
odious in His eyes that whole righteousness of outward observances which gains for 
them the favor of the w^orld. The phrase : Ye are they which justify yourselves, signi- 
fies, "your business is to pass yourselves off as righteous." The on, for, is ex- 
plained by the idea of condemnation, which here attaches to that of knowledge : ' ' God 
knows you [and rejects you], for . . ." '£V dydpoortoiS, on the part of men, may 
mean : among men, or in the judgment of men. In connection with the idea of being 
highly esteemed, those two ideas are combined. Jesus means : " What men extol 
and glorify, consequently the ambitious, who, like you, by one means or another 
push themselves into the front rank, become an object of abomination to God. " For 
all glorification of man rests on falsehood. God alone is great and deserving to be 
praised. 

What had chiefly irritated the Pharisees in the preceding was the spiritual sense 
in which Jesus understood the law, unveiling under their airs of sanctity the stain of 
shameful avarice which defiled them. This idea affords the point of connection for 
what follows (vers. 16-18). 

Vers. 16-18. f " The law and the prophets were until John : since that time the 
kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it. 17. But it is easier for 
heaven and earth to pass, than for one tittle of the law to fail. 18. Whosoever 
putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery : and whosoever 
marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery. ' ' But, adds 
Jesus (ver. 16), a new era is beginning, and with it your usurped dominion comes to 
an end. Since the time of John, that law and those prophets which you have made 

* Ver. 14. &. B. D. L. R 3 Mnn. Syr sch . It. omit xai before oi $api6aioi. Ver. 
15. 11 Mjj. 70 Mnn. omit e6tiv after Geov. 

f Ver. 16. &. B. L. R. X. some ~Mnn., juexpt instead of sgoS before looawov. 
Ver. 18. B.. D. L. some Mnn. Tt. Vg. omit itaS net ween nai and o. 



390 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

your pedestal in Israel are replaced by a new dispensation. To the religious aristoc- 
racy which you had succeeded in founding there follows a kingdom of God equally 
open to every man (itat) ; all have access to it as well as you ! Bid&dBai should not 
be taken in the passive sense, as Hilgenfeld would have it : " Every man is con- 
strained by the gospel," but as a middle, in the sense of to hasten, to throw them- 
selves. There is, as it were, a dense crowd pressing through the gate which is now 
open, and every one, even the lowest of the publicans, is free to enter. Recall here 
the parables of chap. 15. But while this repentant crowd penetrates into the king- 
dom (7 : 29), the Pharisees and scribes remain without, like the elder son in the pre- 
ceding parable. Let them beware, however ! That legal system on which they have 
founded their throne in Israel is about to crumble to pieces (ver. 16) ; while the law 
itself, which they violate at the very moment they make it their boast, shall remain 
as the eternal expression of divine holiness and as the dreadful standard by which 
they shall be judged (ver. 17). The 8e is adversative : but. It indicates the contrast 
between the end of the legal economy and the permanence of the law. This contrast 
reminds us of the antitheses of Matt. 5 of which this saying is a sort of summary : 
" Ye have heard that it was said . . .; but I say unto you . . ." Jesus only 
abolishes the law by fulfilling it and confirming it spiritually. Kepaia, diminutive of 
xepas, horn, denotes the small lines or hooks of the Hebrew letters. The least ele- 
ment of divine holiness which the law contains has more reality and durability than 
the whole visible universe. 

The two verses, 16 and 17, are put by Matthew in the discourse of Jesus regarding 
John the Baptist, 11 : 12, 13, inversely in point of order. We can easily understand 
how the mention of John the Baptist, ver. 16, led Matthew to insert this saying in 
the discourse which Jesus pronounced on His forerunner. W e nave seen tnat m 
that same discourse, as given by Luke (chap. 7), this declaration was with great 
advantage replaced by a somewhat different saying, vers. 29|, 30 ; and if, as Bleek 
owns (i. p. 454, et seq.), Luke decidedly deserves the preference as to the tenor of the 
words, it will doubtless be the same as to the place which he assigns them ; for it is 
in general on this second point that his superiority appears. 

Ver. 18. Not only in spite of the abolition of the legal form will the law continue 
in its substance ; but if this substance even comes to be modified in the new econ- 
omy, it will be in the direction of still greater severity. Jesus gives as an example 
the law of divorce. This same idea meets us, Matt. : 31, 32 ; it tallies fully with 
the meaning of the declaration, Matt. 19 : 3, et seq., Mark 10 : 2, et seq., which was 
uttered in this same journey, and almost at the same period. Jesus explains to the 
same class of hearers as in our passage, to the Pharisees namely, that if Moses author- 
ized divorce, merely confining himself to guard it by some restrictions, there was a 
forsaking for a time of the true moral point of view already proclaimed Gen. 2, and 
which He, Jesus, came to re-establish in its purity. Luke and Matthew do not 
speak of the case of voluntary separation on the part of the woman referred to by 
Mark (10 : 12) and Paul (1 Cor. 7 : 10, 11). And Paul does not expressly interdict 
the divorced man, as Mark does, from contracting a second marriage. Those shades 
in such a precept cannot be voluntary ; they represent natural variations due to tra- 
dition (Syn.) or to the nature of the context (Paul). The parallels quoted leave no 
doubt as to the real connection of ver. 18 with ver. 17. The asyndeton between those 
two verses is explained by the fragmentary character of Luke's report. What 
remains to us of this discourse resembles the peaks of a mountain chain, the base of 



n 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 391 

which is concealed from view, and must be reconstructed by reflection. As to the 
compiler, he has evidently refrained from filling up at his own hand the blanks in his 
document. The disjointed character of this account has been turned into an accusa- 
tion against him ; but it ought rather to be regarded as a proof of his conscientious 
fidelity. 

Does the context, as we have just established it, leave anything to be desired ? 
Has Holtzmann ground for regarding this piece as a collection of sentences thrown 
together at random ? Or is it necessary, in order to justify ver. 18, to regard it, with 
Schleiermacher, as an allusion to the divorce of Herod Antipas from the daughter of 
Aretas, and his unlawful marriage with Herodias — a crime which the scribes and 
Pharisees had not the courage to condemn like John the Baptist ? Or, finally, must 
we, with Olshausen, take the idea of divorce in a spiritual sense, and apply it to the 
emancipation of believers from the yoke of the law, agreeably to Rom. 7 : 1, et seq. 'i 
No ; the explanation which we have given, as well as the authenticity of the context, 
appear to be sufficiently established by the parallels quoted (Mfcjtt. 5 : 18, 19 and 31, 
32, 19 : 3, et seq. ; Mark 10 : 2, et seq.). 

The saying of ver. 17, proclaiming the eternal duration of the law, has appeared 
to some critics incompatible with the Pauline character of Luke's Gospel. Hilgen- 
feld alleges that the canonical text of Luke is falsified, and that the true original form 
of this passage, as well as of many others, has been preserved by Marcion, who 
reads: "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of my sayings to 
fail." But, 1. The manifest incompatibility of our canonical text with Marcion's 
system renders it, on the contrary, very probable that it was Marcion who in this 
case, as in so many others, accommodated the text to his dogmatic point of view. 
2. Could Jesus have applied the word tittle to His own sayings before they had been 
expressed in writing ? 3. The parallel, Matt. 5 : 18, proves that the expression in its 
original meaning really applied to the law. If such was the primary application in 
the mind of Jesus, would it not be extremely surprising if, after an earlier Luke had 
departed from it. the more modern Luke should have reverted to it ? Besides, this 
supposition, combated by Zeller, is withdrawn by Volkmar, who first gave it forth 
(*' Die Evangel.," p. 481). Zeller, however, supposes that the evangelist, feeling the 
anti-Pauline tendency of this saying, designedly inclosed it between two others, 
intended to show the reader that it was not to be taken in its literal sense. But 
would it not have been far simpler to omit it altogether ? And does not so much 
artifice contrast with the simplicity of our Gospels ? 

According to the Talmud, Tract. Gittin (ix. 10), Hillel, the grandfather of Gama- 
liel, the man whom our moderns would adopt as the master of Jesus Christ, taught 
that the husband is entitled to put away his wife when she burns his dinner.* We 
can understand how, in view of such pharisaic teachings, Jesus felt the need of pro- 
testing, not only by affirming the maintenance of moral obligation as contained in the 
law, but even by announcing that the new doctrine would in this respect exceed the 
severity of the old, and would conclusively raise the moral obligation to the height of 
the ideal. The declaration of Jesus, ver. 17, about the maintenance of the law, is, 
besides, perfectly at one with St. Paul's view (1 Cor. 7 : 19) : " The keeping of the 
commandments of God is everything;" comp. Rom. 2:12: "As many as have 
sinned under the law, shall be judged by the law." 

On the basis of this introduction, announcing to the Pharisees* the end of their 
paraded show of righteousness and the advent of real holiness, there rises by way 
of example the following parable. To the words of ver. 15, that which is highly esteemed 
among men, there corresponds the representation of the sumptuous and brilliant life of 
the rich man ; to the predicate, is an abomination in the sight of God (same verse) the 
description of his punishment in Hades ; to the declaration of ver. 17 regarding the 
permanence of the law, the reply of Abraham : they have Moses and the prophets. 

* " Jesus und Hillel," 1867, by Delitzsch, p. 27, where an answer is given to the 
forced interpretation which modern Jews give of this saying. 



392 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

Vers. 19-31. The Parable of tlie Wicked Rich Man. — It is composed of two princi- 
pal scenes, which correspond so exactly with one another, that in their correspond- 
ence we must seek the very idea of the parable ; these are, the scene on the earth 
(vers. 19-22), and that in Hades (vers. 23-31). 

The terrestrial scene, vers. 19-22.* It embraces four portraitures which, taken 
two and two, form counterparts of one another : the life of the rich man, ver. 19, 
and that of the poor man, vers. 20, 21 ; then the death of the former, ver. 22<z, and 
that of the latter, ver. 226. The description of the rich man's life presents two prom- 
inent features : the magnificence of his dress — nopcpvpa, the upper dress, a woollen 
garment dyed purple, and fiv66o$, the under garment, a tunic of fine linen ; next, 
the sumptuousness of his habitual style of living — a splendid banquet daily. This 
description of the life of the rich of that day applied to the Jews as well as to the 
Gentiles. Nay, among the former, who sometimes regarded wealth as a sign of di- 
vine blessing, the enjoyments of that privileged state must have been indulged with 
so much the less scruple ; so the Pharisees in particular seem to have done (20 : 46, 
47). After the rich man, who first claims attention, our eyes are carried to 'the un- 
happy man laid at the entrance of his house, vers. 20 and 21. The Greek name 
Lazarus does not come, as some have thought, from Lo-ezer, no help, but from El-ezer, 
God helps ; whence the form Eleazar, abbreviated by the Rabbins into Leazar ; and 
hence Lazarus. This name, according to John 11, was common among the Jews. 
As this is the only case in which Jesus designates one of the personages of a parable 
by his name, this peculiarity must have a significance in the account. It is intended, 
doubtless, as the name so often was among the Jews, to describe the character of him 
who bears it. By this name, then, Jesus makes this personage the representation 
of that class of the Israelitish people which formed the opposite extreme of Pharisa- 
ism — poor ones whose confidence was in God alone, the Aniim of the O. T., the 
pious indigent. 

The gateway at the entrance of which he was laid is that which conducts in East- 
ern houses from the outside to the first court. The word kfie&lrjTo, was thrown, ex- 
presses the heedlessness with which he was laid down there and abandoned to the 
care of those who were constantly going and coming about this great house. The 
crumbs denote the remains of the meal which the servants would sometimes throw to 
him, but which were not enough to satisfy him. The omission of the words rtiv 
ipixuov by some Alex, arises from the confusion of the two tuv by an ancient copyist ; 
these words are wrongly rejected by Tischendorf ; they are to be preserved as the 
counterpart of the drop of water, ver. 24. The nakedness of the poor man contrasts 
with the rich man's elaborate toilet, as those crumbs do with his banquets. The 
words dXXd xai, moreover, which indicate a higher degree of endurance, forbid us 
t<5 regard the feature of the dogs licking the sores of Lazarus as an alleviation of his 
miseries. Besides, this animal is never represented in the Bible, nor among the Ori- 
entals in general, in a favorable light. The licking of the poor man's un bandaged 
wounds by those unclean animals as they passed, is the last stroke of the picture of 
his nakedness and forsakenness. 

To the contrast between the two lives there soon succeeds that between the two 
deaths, ver. 22, which introduces the contrast between the two states in the life to 

* Yer. 20. &. B. D. L. X. omit rjv after tiS and o? before E^EftXrjro. Ver. 21. 
&. B. L. It ali( i. omit tgov ifiixicav. 



/6 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 393 

come. Lazarus dies first, exhausted by privations and sufferings. That very moment 
he finds in the heavenly world the sympathy which was refused to him here below. 
In Jewish theology, the angels are charged with receiving the souls of pious 
Israelites, and transporting them to that portion of Hades which is reserved for them. 
Abraham's bosom, a figure also common among the Rabbins, denotes either intimate 
communion in general (John 1 : 18), or more specially the place of honor at a feast 
(John 13 : 23) ; this is naturally assigned to the newly-arrived stranger, all the more 
that his earthly sufferings demand a rich compensation. Abraham presides at the 
feast until the Messiah comes to take the first place, and the feast of the kingdom 
begins (13 : 25). Meyer concludes, from the fact that the interment of Lazarus is not 
mentioned, and from the object avrdv, Mm, that he was transported body and soul 
to Abraham's bosom. But so early as in the Targum of Canticles, we find the dis- 
tinction between body and soul ; " The righteous whose souls are carried by angels 
to paradise." The pronoun avrov thus designates only his true self, the soul. The 
burial of Lazarus is not mentioned, for it took place without ceremony, or perhaps 
not at all. The body, claimed by no one, was thrown to the dunghill. The con- 
trast to the rich man is evident. No angels to transport his soul ; but for his body, 
on the contrary, a splendid funeral procession. 

What is the crime in the life of this rich man which accounts for the terrible 
condition described in the following scene ? From the fact that it is not mentioned, 
the conclusion has been drawn that it must be simply his riches. The Tiibingen 
school says : he is condemned as being rich, and Lazarus is saved as being poor. 
And M. Renan thinks that the parable should be entitled, not the parable of the 
wicked rich man, but merely of the rich man. Here, it is said, we meet again with 
the Ebionite heresy of Luke (De Wette). But how has it escaped observation, that 
if no crime properly so called is laid to the charge of the rich man, his misdeed is 
nevertheless clearly indicated ; and it is no other than the very existence of this poor 
man laid at his gate in destitution, without any relief being brought to his wants. 
Such is the corpus delicti. The crime of the life described ver. 19, is the fact referred 
to vers. 20 and 21. Every social contrast between the more and the less, either in re- 
spect of fortune, or strength, or acquirement, or even piety, is permitted and willed 
by God only with a view to its being neutralized by man's free agency. This is a 
task assigned from on high, the means of forming those bonds of love which are our 
treasure in heaven (12 : 33, 34). To neglect this offer is to procure for one's self an 
analogous contrast in the other life— a contrast which shall be capable of being 
sweetened for us no more than we have ourselves sweetened it in the life below. It 
would be hard to understand how, if wealth as such were the rich man's sin, the 
celestial banquet could be presided over by Abraham, the richest of the rich in Israel. 
As to Lazarus, the real cause of the welcome which he finds in the world to come is 
not his poverty, but that which is already pointed out by his name : God is my 
help. 

The scene from beyond the tomb, vers. 23-31, offers a contrast exactly corre- 
sponding to the terrestrial scene. We do not attempt to distinguish in the represen- 
tation what should be taken in a figurative sense and what strictly. The realities of 
the spiritual world can only be expressed by figures ; but, as has been said, those 
figures are the figures of something. The colors are almost all borrowed from the 
palette of the Rabbins ; but the thought which clothes itself in those figures that it 
may become palpable, is, as we shall see, the original and personal thought of Jesus. 



394 COMMENTARY 0£T ST. LUKE. 

Of the two interviews forming this scene, the first relates to the rich man's lot (vers. 
23-26), the second to that of his brethren (vers. 27-31). 

Vers. 23-26.* After the short sleep of death, what an awakening ! The idea of 
suffering does not lie in the words ev rc3 ady, which our versions render by : in hell. 
Sclieol (Heb.), Hades (Gr.), the Inferi or infernal regions (Lat.), simply denote the 
abode of the dead, without distinguishing the different conditions which it may in- 
clude, in opposition to the land of the living. Paradise (23 : 43) as well as Gehenna 
(12 : 5) forms part of it. Hence, also, from the midst of his punishment the rich man 
can behold Abraham and Lazarus. The notion of pain is actually found only in the 
words : being in torments. On Abraham in the abode of the dead, comp. John 8 : 56, 
where Jesus speaks without figure. The plural roK noXitoii, substituted for the sin- 
gular (ver. 22), denotes fulness ; a whole region is meant where a company is gathered 
together. The situation, ver. 24 et seq. , is very similar to that of the dialogues of the 
dead found in the ancients, and particularly in the Rabbins. <Pcovr]6aS, calling in a 
loud voice, corresponds to j.iaxp6Qsv, afar off, ver. 23. Nothing more severe for those 
Pharisees, who made a genealogical tree the foundation of their salvation, than this 
address put into the mouth of the poor condemned man : Father Abraham! " All 
the circumcised are safe," said the Rabbins ; therefore, was not circumcised equiva- 
lent to son of Abraham ? In this situation, there arises in the mind of the rich man 
a thought which had never occurred to him while he was on the earth, namely, that 
the contrast between abundance and destitution may have its utility for him who is 
in want. He expresses his discovery with a simplicity in which shamelessness dis- 
putes the palm with innocence. The gen. vdaroS with fiaitreiY : to drop water ; 
this expression denotes water falling drop by drop from the /finger which has been 
immersed in it ; it thus corresponds to the word crumbs, ver. 21. 

On flame, comp. Mark 9 : 43-48, 49. Lustful desires, inflamed and fed by bound- 
less gratification, change into torture for the soul as soon as it is deprived of the ex- 
ternal objects which correspond to them, and from the body by which it communi- 
cates with them. The address : my son, in the mouth of Abraham, is more poignant 
still than that of Father Abraham in that of the rich man. Abraham acknowledges 
the realitj 7- of the civil state appealed to; and yet this man is and remains in Gehenna ! 
The word remember is the central one of the parable ; for it forms the bond between 
the two scenes, that of the earth and that of Hades. " Recall the contrast which 
thou didst leave unbroken on the earth . . . and thou shalt understand that the 
present corresponding contrast cannot be alleviated without injustice. Thou hast let 
the time pass for making Lazarus thy friend (16 : 8, 9) ; he can now do nothing for 
thee." In drfsAafieS, thou receivedst, there is, as in the airexEiv, Matt. 6 : 2, 5, 16, 
the notion of receiving by appropriating greedily for the purpose of enjo}Tnent. The 
selfish appropriation of goods was not tempered in him by the free munificence of 
love. He thought only of draining to the very bottom the cup of pleasure which was 
at his lips. The same idea is expressed by the pronoun 6ov added to dyccQa, " thy 
good things ;" this qualification is not added to nana, in the second clause ; Abra- 
ham says simply : " evil things." God trains the human soil by joys and by sor- 
rows. The education of every soul demands a certain sum of both. This thought 

* Ver. 25. 7 Mjj. 30 Mnn. Vss. omit 6v after aiteXafiei. Instead of oSs (T. R. 
with some Mnn.), all the documents : cods. Ver. 26. J*. B. L. ltP leri i ue , ev instead of 
Eiti before 7ta6i. Instead of evtevQev (T. R. with K. TT. some Mnn.), all the docu- 
ments, evBev. 2$. R. D. omit oi before exeiQev. 



COMMENTARY 02* ST. LUKE. 395 

forms the foundation of ver. 25. It refers exclusively to the pedagogical economy 
here below or in the world above. The words comforted and tormented are not the 
equivalents of saved and damned, absolutely taken. Nothing could be final among 
the members of the ancient covenant till they had been brought into contact with 
Jesus Christ.* " The gospel," says St. Peter (1 Ep. 4 : 6), " was preached to them 
that are dead, that they might be [capable of being] judged." The knowledge of 
Jesus Christ is the condition on which the pronouncing of the final sentence on every 
soul is based. The hour of this judgment has not yet struck for the rich man. Con- 
sequently this verse neither teaches salvation by poverty nor damnation by riches ; 
code, here, which is read by all the Mjj., is preferable to ode, he. Here is opposed 
to : in his lifetime. 

Ver. 26. But even supposing that some concession might be made in respect of 
justice, there is another reason which cuts off all hope— the impossibility of the thing. 
The Eabbins represent the two parts of Hades as separated by a wall ; Jesus here 
substitutes a gulf, a figure which agrees better with the entire description. It is the 
emblem of God's inflexible decree. Only from the fact that this gulf cannot be 
crossed at present, it does not follow that it may not be so one day by means of a 
bridge offered to repentant Jews (comp. Matt. 12 : 32). f The omission of oi before 
exeiBev, by the Alex. , identifies those who pass with those who repass. 

Vers. 27 f -314 The Second Conversation. — The rich man acquiesces so far as his 
own person is concerned. But he intercedes for his brethren still in life. And again 
it is Lazarus who must busy himself on their behalf ! What is the thought contained 
in this conclusion ? Starting from the standpoint that the idea of the parable is the 
condemnation of wealth, De Wette, the Tubingen school, and Weizsacker himself 
find this last part entirely out of keeping with the rest of the description. For it is 
their impenitence face to face with the law and the prophets which exposes the five 
brethren to danger, and not their being rich men. They allege therefore that Luke 
at his own hand has added this conclusion, with the view of transforming a doctrine 
which was originally Ebionite and Judeo-Christian into one anti-Judaic or Pauline. 
The rich man, who, in the original meaning of the similitude, simply represented 
riches, becomes in this conclusion the type of Jewish unbelief in respect of the resur- 
rection of Jesus. Weizsacker goes the length of regarding Lazarus as the represent- 
ative of the Gentiles despised by the Jews. This last idea is incompatible with the 
Jewish name Lazarus, as well as with the place awarded to him in Abraham's bosom, 
the gathering place of pious Jews. As to the rich man, from the beginning he rep- 
resents not the rich in general, but the rich man hardened by well-being, the Pharisee, 
whose heart, puffed up with pride, is closed to sympathy with the suffering. This 
appears from the expressions : Father Abraham, my son, vers. 24, 25, which are as it 
were the motto of Israelitish formalism (Matt. 3 : 7-9 ; John 8 : 39). This conclusion 
is thus nothing else than the practical application of the parable, which, instead of 
being presented to his hearers in the form of an abstract lesson, is given as the con- 

* This generalization is based on an interpretation of 1 Pet. 4 : 6, determined by 
connecting it with chap. 3 : 19, 20. But this connection is not certain, nor is there 
anything like agreement as to the meaning of either text. — J. H. 

f Our author, in quoting this verse in this connection, is opposed to the weightiest 
authorities. The words "in this world (age) or the world to come," are correctly 
taken by De Wette, Alford, etc., as equivalent to never. — J. H, 

\ Ver. 29. ft. B. L. omit avrao after \eyei or Xeyei de. 



396 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

tinuation of the scene itself. It is exactly the same in the parable of the prodigal 
son, in which the elder son exhibits the Pharisees with their murmurings, and the 
divine answer. The first portrait, vers. 19-21, depicted the sin of the rich man ; the 
second, vers. 22-26, his punishment. In this appendix: Jesus unveils to His hearers 
the cause of this misery, the absence of juerdvoia, repentance, and for those who 
wished to profit by the warning, the means of preventing the lot which threatens 
them at the moment of their death : taking to heart Moses and the prophets very 
differently from what they have ever done. There must pass within them what took 
place in the prodigal son, the figure of the publicans (15 : 17 : he came to himself), and 
in the steward, the type of the new believers (16 : 3 : he said within himself) : that act 
of solemn self-examination in which the heart is broken at the thought of its sins, 
and which impresses an entirely new direction on the life, and on the employment of 
earthly goods in particular. To reject this conclusion is therefore to break the arrow- 
point shot by the hand of Jesus at the consciences of His hearers. 

Ver. 27. The five brethren cannot represent the rich of this world in general, and 
as little the Jews who remained unbelieving in respect of Jesus Christ. They are 
Jews living in a privileged, brilliant condition, like that of the rich man — the Phari- 
sees, whom this man represented ; this relation is the idea expressed by the image of 
the kinship which connects them. Some have imagined that those five brethren are 
the five sons of the high priest Annas. Would Jesus have condescended to such per- 
sonalities ? The forms of address : father, ver. 27, father Abraham, ver. 30, continue 
to define the meaning of this principal personage very clearly. Aia uaprvps6Qat, 
ver. 28, does not signify only : to declare, but to testify in such a way that the truth 
pierces through the wrappings of a hardened conscience (Sioc). In putting this re- 
quest into the rich man's mouth, Jesus undoubtedy alludes tjo that thirst for miracles, 
for extraordinary and palpable manifestations, which He never failed to meet among 
His adversaries, and which He refused to satisfy. Such demands charge with in- 
sufficiency the means of repentance which God had all along placed in Israel. Some 
commentators, unable to allow any good feeling in one damned, have attributed this 
pcayer of the rich man to a selfish aim. According to them, he dreaded the time 
when his own sufferings would be aggravated by seeing those of his brethren. But 
would not even this fear still suppose in him a remnant of love ? And why represent 
him as destitute of all human feeling ? He is not yet, we have seen, damned in the 
absolute sense of the word. If we must seek a selfish alloy in this prayer, it can only 
be the desire to excuse himself, by giving it to be understood, that if he had been 
sufficiently warned he would not have been where he is. 

Abraham teaches all his sons by his reply, ver. 29, with what earnestness they should 
henceforth listen to the reading of that law and those prophets, the latter of which 
they had, up till now, heard or even studied in vain (John 5 : 38, 39). The subject 
has nothing to do with unbelief regarding Jesus ; the situation of this saying is purely 
Jewish. The rich man insists. His answer. Nay, father Abraham, ver. 30, depicts 
the Rabbinical spirit of disputation and pharisaic effrontery. Repentance would pro- 
duce, he fully acknowledges, a life wholly different from his own (such as it has been 
described, ver. 19) ; but the law without miracles would not suffice to produce this 
state of mind. Jesus unveils, ver. 31, the complete illusion belonging to this idea of 
conversion by means of great miraculous interpositions. He whom the law and the 
prophets bring not to the conviction of his sins, will be as little led to it by the sight 
even of one raised from the dead. After the first emotion of astonishment and ter- 



/I o 



COMMENTARY 0£T 8T. LUKE. 397 

tor, criticism will awake saying, Hallucination ! and carnal security, shaken for a 
moment, will reassert itself. Jesus not having showed Himself, and not having 
preached to the Jews after His resurrection, this saying cannot be an invention of 
Luke borrowed from that event. 

Such is the terrible answer of Jesus to the derision of His adversaries, the proud 
and covetous Pharisees, ver. 14. He shows them their portrait, the likeness of their 
present' life, and their lot after death. Now they know what they are in the eyes of 
God (19-21), and what awaits them (23-35) ; they know also the real cause of their 
near perdition, and the only means which can yet avert it (27-31). 

From this study it follows : 1. That all the indications of the preface (vers. 14-18) 
are entirely justified ; in particular, that the <Papi6aioz {the Pharisees), ver. 14, is the 
real key of the parable. 2. That there reigns throughout this description a perfect 
unity of idea, and that the context furnishes no well-founded reason for distinguishing 
between an original parable and a later rehandling. 3. That the piece as a whole, 
in all its details, are in direct correspondence with the historical situation in which 
Jesus was teaching, and find their natural explanation without any need of having re- 
course to the later circumstances of apostolic times. 4. That this passage furnishes 
no proof of an Ebionite document anterior to our Gospel, and forming one of the 
essential materials employed by the author. Hilgenfeld says (" Die Evangel." p. 102) : 
" Nowhere does our Gospel allow us to distinguish so clearly the original writing of 
which it is the anti-Jewish and Pauline handling." Nowhere so clearly ! This pas- 
sage proving nothing, it follows that the others prove less than nothing. 

This character, not anti- Jewish, but certainly anti-pharisaic, belongs equally to the 
whole series of pieces which we have just surveyed (comp. 11 : 37-12 : 12) ; then (after 
an interruption), 13 : 10-31, 14 : 1, 5 : 2, 16 : 14. The parable of the unfaithful steward 
is also connected with this series by the law of contrast. Here then, is the time of 
the most intense struggle between Jesus and pharisaism, in Galilee, like the contem- 
poraneous period, John 7-10, in Judea. 

7. Various Sayings : 17 : 1-10. — This piece contains four brief lessons, placed here 
without introduction, and between which it is impossible to establish a connection. 
Olshausen and Meyer have attempted to connect them with one another and with 
what precedes. The offence, vers. 1 and 2, according to them, is either that which the 
rich man gave to his brethren, or that which the Pharisees gave to weak believers, by 
preventing them from declaring themselves for Christ. But how is the expression, 
one of these little ones (ver. 2), applicable to the rich man's brethren ? And in the sec- 
ond sense, should not the warning be addressed to the adversaries rather than unto the 
disciples (ver. 1) ? The teaching regarding pardon (vers. 3, 4) is taken to refer to the 
arrogant harshness of the Pharisees, who did not allow the publicans to appropriate 
the pardon of sins (the offence, vers. 1, 2) ; or rancor is regarded as one of those 
offences of which we must beware ; or, finally, a climax is supposed : it is not-enough 
not to do evil to others (vers. 1,2); we should also pardon the evil which they do to 
us (vers. 3 and 4). These connections, more or less ingenious, are artificial ; they are 
like those by which one succeeds in tagging together given rhymes. The petition of 
the apostles (vers. 5 and 6) is held to find its occasion in the feeling of their power- 
lessness to pardon. But in this sense, Jesus should have spoken in Hi's reply, not of 
the faith which works external miracles, but of that which works by love. Lastly, 
the doctrine taught of the non-meritoriousness of works (vers. 7-10) is alleged to be 
introduced by this idea, that the greatest miracles wrought by faith confer no merit 
on man. But how could miracles of faith be described as diaraxBevra, things com- 
manded ? De Wette is therefore right in declining to find a connection between those 
different sayings. Let us add that several of them are placed by Matthew and Mark 



398 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

in historical circumstances, where they have their entire appropriateness. "We shall 
be able to state the critical result when we come to sum up. 

Vers. 1 and 2.* Offences. — " Then said He unto the disciples, It is impossible but 
that offences (scandals) will come : but woe unto him through whom they come ! 2. 
It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into 
the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. Take heed to your- 
selves." The formula eiite 8e, then said He (aor.), has not the same weight as the 
sXsys 8s, He was saying to them, the significance of which in Luke we have often 
remarked. It is the simple historical fact. ' 'AvehSektov, inadmissible. The absence 
of offences is a supposition which cannot be admitted in tbe sinful state in which the 
world is plunged. The determining particle rov is authentic. The form, (the) 
offences (roc), denotes the entire category of facts of this kind. The reading u.v\o6 
ovixdS, a millstone moved by an ass, is undoubtedly borrowed from Matthew ; we 
must adopt, with the Alex., A./Qo$ juvA.ix6$, a millstone of smaller "dimensions, moved 
by the hand (ver. 35). The punishment to which ver. 2 alludes was usual among 
many ancient peoples, and is so still in the East. The reading of several copies of 
the Itala, which is also found in Marcion, " It were better for him that he had 
never been born, or that a stone . . ." arises, no doubt, from an ancient gloss 
taken from Matt. 26 : 24. This is confirmed by the fact that Clemens Romanus 
combines in his 1 Cor. 46 the two passages, Matt. 18 : 6, 7 (parallel to ours) and Matt. 
26 : 24. The little ones are beginners in the faith. The final warning, Take heed 
. . . is occasioned, on the one hand, by the extreme facilit3 r of causing offence 
(ver. 1) ; on the other, by the terrible danger to which it exposes him who causes it 
(ver. 2). The lost soul, like an eternal burden, is bound tjo him who has dragged it 
into evil, and in turn drags him into the abyss. 

The same warning is found Matt. 18 : 6 and Mark 9 : 42. The offence which gave 
rise to it may be in this context, either that which the disciples had given one another 
in the strife which had taken place between them, or that which they had caused to 
the man in whom faith had just dawned (one of these little ones), and who was mani- 
festing it by curing the possessed. Luke evidently did not know this connection ; 
for he would not have failed to indicate it — he who seeks out historical situations 
with so much care. Had he not, besides, himself mentioned those two facts 
(9 : 46-50), and might he not have connected this admonition with them as Mark 
does ? Luke, therefore, did not possess this original Mark, which Holtzmann regards 
as one of his principal sources ; otherwise he would not have detached this saying 
from the fact which gave rise to it. But the account given by Matthew and Mark 
proves the truth of Luke's introduction, " He said unto the disciples," and the accu- 
racy of the document from which he derived this precept. 

Vers. 3 and 4.f The Pardon of Trespasses. — " If thy brother trespass against thee, 
rebuke him ; and if he repent, forgive him. 4. And if he trespass against thee seven 

* Ver. 1. 9 Mjj. 25 Mnn. Vss. omit avrov after juaQrjraS. T. R., with some 
Mnn., only omits rov before 6uav8aXa. &. B. D. L. some Mnn. lt ali< i., nXr/v ovai 
instead of ovai 8s. Ver. 2. ltP leri( i ue , si ovu EysvvrfQr} y XiQoS . . . Marcion 
appears to have read thus ; Clem. Rom. perhaps. &. B. D. L. 20 Mnn. It. Vg., XiBoS 
juvAixoS instead of juv\o*s ovixoS. 

f Ver. 3. 5 Mjj. some Mnn. Vss. omit de after sav. if. A. B. L. ItP leri( i ue , omit «s 
as after afiaprr) (words taken, perhaps, from ver. 4 or from Matt. 18 : 15). Ver. 4. &. 
B. D. L. X. some Mnn. ItP leri i ue , omit rrjs 7]ixepac. Instead of em ere, which T. R., 
with some Mnn., reads, 7 Mjj. read npos ae. 12 Mjj. 125* Mnn. Il aIi i. omit all gov- 
ernment. 



/7 

GOMMEKTAEY ON ST. LUKE. 399 

limes in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent, thou 
shalt forgive him." Holiness and love meet together in this precept : holiness begins 
with rebuking ; then, when the rebuke has once been taken, love pardons. The 
pardon to be granted to our brethren has no other limit than their repenting, and the 
confession by which it is expressed. 

Matthew (18 : 15-22) places this precept in the same discourse as the preceding ; 
it probably referred also to the altercation which had taken place between the dis- 
ciples on that occasion. But there what gives rise to it is a characteristic question of 
Peter, which Luke did not know ; otherwise he would not have omitted it ; comp. 
12 :41, where he carefully mentions a similar question put by the same apostle. 
Mark omits this precept about pardon ; but at the end of the same discourse we rind 
this remarkable exhortation (9 : 50) : ' ' Have salt in yourselves (use severity toward 
yourselves ; comp. 5 : 43-48), and have peace with one another" — a saying which has 
substantially the same meaning as our precept on the subject of pardon. What a 
proof both of the radical authenticity of the sayings of Jesus and of the fragmentary 
manner in which tradition had preserved them, as well as of the diversity of the 
sources from which our evangelists derived them ! 

Vers. 5 and 6.* Faith. — *' And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. 
C. And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto 
this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea ; 
and it should obey you." This request of the disciples must have been called forth 
by some manifestation of the extraordinary power of Jesus, with which Luke was 
unacquainted. The literal force of the word which the disciples use, " Add to our 
faith," assumes that they think they have some. Jesus does not deny it ; but He 
reduces this having to the feeblest imaginable quantity, since the smallest organic 
body is too large as an emblem of it. The only real power in the universe is the 
divine will. The human will, which has discovered the secret of blending with this 
force of forces, is raised, in virtue of this union, to omnipotence ; and from the time 
it becomes conscious of this privilege, it acts without obstruction, even in the 
domain of nature, if the kingdom of God so requires. Perhaps the s.ycamine to 
which Jesus points is, in His view, the emblem of the kingdom of God, and the sea 
(here the shore, the pure sand) that of the heathen world, that, till now, barren soil 
in which, by the faith and the prayers of the disciples, the divine work is henceforth 
to be planted and to prosper. 

• Matthew twice presents a saying similar to that of ver. 6, and both times in a 
definite situation ; first, after the healing of the lunatic son, and in contrast to the 
apostles' lack of faith (17 : 20, 21). Only in the two cases it is a mountain which is 
to be cast into the sea. Mark, who in narrating the cursing of the fig-tree shows 
himself the most accurately informed, there reproduces this parable almost in the 
same way as Matthew ; only he prefaces it with the words, " Have faith in God," 
and connects with it an exhortation to pardon as the condition of prayer being heard. 
No doubt, owing to the proverbial character of this saying, it may have been fre- 
quently repeated. But there is a very remarkable dovetailing between Luke and the 
two others, Mark especially. Do not the words of Jesus in Mark, Have faith in God 
and . . . perfectly explain the prayer of the apostles in Luke, Increase our faith? 
Here, as at 12 : 41 (comp. with Mark 13 : 37), the one evangelist has preserved one 
part of the conversation, the other another. With a common written source, is that 
intelligible? As to the admonition regarding pardon, which in Mark follows this 
exhortation to faith (11 : 24, 25), it sustains to the question of Peter (Matt. 18 : 21), 
and the exhortation in Luke (vers. 3, 4), a relation similar to that which we have just 

* Ver. 6. &. D. L. X. omit Tavrrj. 



400 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

observed between Luke YZ : 41 and Mark 13 : 37. They are fragments of one whole, 
the grouping of which it is not difficult to restore. 

Vers. 7-10.* The Non-meritoriousness of Works. — " But which of you, having a 
servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come 
.from the field, Go and sit down to meat ? 8. And will not rather say unto him, Make 
ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and 
drunken ; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink? 9. Doth he thank that servant 
because he did the things that were commanded him ? I trow not. 10. So likewise 
ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are 
unprofitable servants : we have done that which was our duty to do." This saying, 
which has no connection with what immediately precedes, does not the less admirably 
close this series of exhortations given by Jesus, which almost all relate to pharisaism ; 
it is peculiar to Luke. A slave returns in the evening, after having labored all day 
in the fields. Does the master give himself up to extraordinary demonstrations of 
pleasure ? No ; everything goes on in the house according to the established order. 
From the work of the day, the servant simply passes to that of the evening ; he 
dresses the viands, and serves at table as long (Iws, or better still, ews av) as his master 
pleases to eat and drink. And only then may he himself take his meal. So the most 
irreproachable of men must say to himself that he has done nothing but pay his debt 
to God ; does not God on His side provide for all his wants ? From the standpoint 
of right, they are quits on both sides. The word axpelos, unprofitable, here signifies : 
one who has rendered no service (beyond what was due). /This estimation of human 
work is true in the sphere of right where pharisaism plants itself, and it crushes this 
system in the dust by denying, along with all human njierit, all obligation on God's 
part to recompense man ; and this estimate should remain that of every man when he 
values his work in the presence of God. But there is a sphere higher than that of right, 
that of love ; and in this latter another labor on man's part, that of joyful devo- 
tion, and another estimate on God's part, that of the love which is rejoiced by love. 
Jesus has described this other point of view, 12 : 36, 37. Holtzmann thinks it impos- 
sible that this exhortation should have been addressed to the disciples (ver. 1). But 
is not the pharisaic tendency ever ready to spring up again in the hearts of believers ? 
and does it not cling like a gnawing worm to fidelity itself ? The words : 1 trow not, 
are mistakenly rejected by the Alex. Perhaps the ov cWw has been confounded with 
the ovto) which follows. 

How are we to explain the position of those four exhortations in our Gospel, and 
their juxtaposition, without any logical bond ? According to Holtzmann, f Luke is 
about to return to his great historical source, the proto-Mark, which he had left since 
9 : 51, to work the collection of discourses, the Logia (comp. 18 : 15, where the narra- 
tive of Luke begins again to move parallel to that of the two others) ; and hence he 
inserts here by anticipation the two exhortations, vers. 1-4, which he borrows from 
this document (A) ; then he relates further (vers. 5-10) two sayings which he had for- 
gotten, and which he takes from the Logia (A), which he is about to quit. But, 1. 
Why in this case should he not have put these last in the first place (which was the 
natural order, since all the preceding was taken from A), and the two first afterward 

* Ver. 7. K. B. D. L. X. 15 Mnn. Vss. add avro after epei. Ver. 9. 6 Mjj. It ali< i. 
omit etceivu after dovXu. 17 Mjj. 130 Mnn. omit avro. 2*. B. L. X. 6 Mnn. It all< i. 
omit ov (hnu. Ver. 10. The mss. are divided between GxfrEil.ojuev and o<pet?io/u.ev. 

f " Already, 17 : 1-4, Luke attempts to return to A. ; then to finish, he gives, be- 
sides, several passages taken from A," (p. 156). 



. / 7 

COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 401 

(which was not less natural, since Luke is about to return to A) ? Besides, 2. Has 
not the exegesis convinced us at every word that Luke certainly did not take all those 
sayings from the same, written source as Mark and Matthew ? The only explanation 
which can be given of the fragmentary character of this piece appears to us to be the 
following : Luke had up to this point related a series of exhortations given by Jesus, 
the occasion of which he was able to a certain extent to indicate ; but he found some 
in his sources which were mentioned without any historical indication. It is this 
remnant scrap at the bottom of the portfolio, if I may so speak, which he delivers to 
us as it was, and without any introduction. Hence follow two consequences : 1. 
Luke's introductions in this part are not of his inventing. For why could not his 
ingenious mind have provided for these last exhortations as well as for all the pre- 
ceding? A historical case like those of 11 : 1, 45, 12 : 13, 41, etc., was not difficult 
to imagine. 2. There is no better proof of the historical reality of the sayings of 
Jesus quoted in our Syn., than this fragmentary character which surprises us. Dis- 
courses which the disciples had put into the mouth of their Master would not have 
presented this broken appearance. 

third cycle. — chap. 17 : 11-19 : 27. 
The last Scenes of the Journey. 

This third section brings us to Bethany, to the gates of Jerusalem, and* to the 
morning of Palm Day. It seems to me evident that Luke, in ver. 11, intends simply 
to indicate the continuation of the journey begun 9 : 51, and not, as Wiessler will have 
it, the beginning of a different journey. In consequence of the multiplicity of events 
related, Luke reminds us from time to time of the general situation. It is in the 
course of this third section that his narrative rejoins that of the two other Syn. (18 : 15 
et seq.), at the time when children are brought to Jesus that He may bless them. 
This event- being expressly placed in Perea by Matthew and Mark, it is clear that the 
following events must have taken place at the time when Jesus was about to cross 
the Jordan, or had just passed it. 

1. The Ten Lepers : 17 : 11-19.— Vers. 11-19.* Ver. 11, eveu in its construction, 
reminds us of 9 : 51. The nal av to s hets here, as well as there, peculiar force. The 
caravans of Galilee took either the Samaritan route or the Perean. Jesus follows 
neither ; He makes one for Himself, the result of His deliberate wish, which is inter- 
mediate between the two — a fact which seems to be expressed by the so marked re- 
suming of the subject (nai avrds). The phrase diu'/xecov may signify in Greek : while 
travelling through both of those provinces, or while passing between them. Olshau- 
sen takes the first sense : he alleges that from Ephraim, whither Jesus retired after 
the resurrection of Lazarus (John 11 : 54), He visited Galilee once more, thus travers- 
ing from south to north, first Samaria, and then Galilee. Gess (p. 74) also regards 
this return from Ephraim to Capernaum as probable, f But the governed clause to 
Jerusalem would in this sense be real irony. The second sense is therefore the only 

* Ver. 11. &. B. L. omit avrov after iropeveoQat. £*}. B. L., dia fieoov instead of 6ia 
fiecov. Ver. 12. &. L. some Mnn., vK7ivrr\aav instead of a-KTjVTTiaav. The same Mjj. 
omit avTu. 

,f Gess's reason is the scene of the didrachma, Matt. 17 : 24-27 ; for the collection 
for the temple was made in March. But in the year which preceded His death, 
Jesus may possibly not have paid till summer the tribute which was properly due in 
spring. The form of the collector's question, Matt., ver. 24, seems to suppose a pay- 
ment which was at once voluntary and in arrears. It is not therefore necessary, on 
this ground, to hold a return from Capernaum to Galilee immediately before the last 
Passover. 



402 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

possible one : Jesus was passing along the confines of the two provinces. This mean- 
ing is confirmed by the absence of the article before the two proper names : Samaria 
and Galilee. He directed his steps from west to east, toward the Jordan, which He 
must cross to enter Perea — a fact which harmonizes, as we have seen, with Matt. 
19 : 1, Mark 10 : 1, and even John 10 : 40-42. Luke probably recalls here this general 
situation in view of the following narrative, in which we find a Samaritan leper min- 
gling with Jewish lepers. Community of suffering had, in their case, broken down 
the national barrier. Less bold than the leper of chap. 6, those unhappy men kept at 
a distance, according to the law, Lev. 13 : 46. The space which a leper was bound 
to keep between him and every other person is estimated by some at 4, by others at 
100 cubits. The cry which they uttered with one voice on perceiving Jesus, draws 
His attention to the pitiable sight. Without even telling them of their cure, He bids 
them go and give thanks for it. There is a dash, as it were, of triumphant joy in 
this unexpected order. As they go (ev tcj indyetv), they observe the first symptoms of 
the cure which has been wrought. Immediately one of them, seized with an irresist- 
ible emotion of gratitude, turns back, uttering loud cries of joy and adoration ; and 
arrived in the presence of Jesus, he prostrates himself at His feet in thanksgiving. 
The difference is to be observed between dotjd&tv, glorifying, applied to God, and 
evxafHarelv, giving thanks, applied to Jesus. As He recognizes him to be a Samari- 
tan, Jesus feels to the quick the difference between those simple hearts, within which 
there yet vibrates the natural feeling of gratitude, and Jewish hearts, incrusted all 
over with pharisaic pride and ingratitude ; and immediately, no doubt, the lot of His 
gospel in the world is presented to His mind. But He contents Himself with bring- 
ing into view the present contrast. Evped7jaav has not for its subject the participle 
vKocTpeipavTEc, taken substantively, but akloi understood. Bleek refers the last 
words : thy faith hath saved thee, to the physical cure which Jesus would confirm to 
the sufferer by leading him to develop that disposition of faith which has procured 
it for him. But have we not here rather a new blessing, of which Jesus gives special 
assurance to this leper ? The faith of which Jesus speaks is not merely that which 
brought him at the first, but more still that which has brought him back. By this 
return he has sealed forever the previous transitory connection which his cure had 
formed between Jesus and him ; he recognizes His word as the instrument of the 
miracle ; he unites himself closely to the entire person of Him whose power only he 
had sought at the first. And thereby his physical cure is transformed into a moral 
cure, into salvation. 

Criticism suspects this narrative on account of its universalistic tendency. But 
if it had been invented with a didactic aim, would the lesson to be drawn from it 
have been so completely passed over in silence ? We must in this case also suspect 
the healing of the Gentile centurion's servant in Matthew ; and that with more reason 
still, because Jesus insists on the general lesson to be derived from the event. 

2. The Messiah's Coming : 17 : 20-18 : 8. — This piece embraces : 1st. A question 
put by the Pharisees respecting the time of the appearance of the kingdom of God, 
and the answer of Jesus (vers. 20, 21) ; 2d. A discourse addressed by Jesus to His 
disciples on the same subject (vers. 22-37) ; 3d. The parable of the unjust judge, 
which applies the subject treated practically to believers (18 : 1-8). 

1st. Vers. 20 and 21.* The Spirituality of the Kingdom. — " And when He was de- 

* Ver. 21. &. B. L. omit idov before enei, 



/7 

COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 403 

manded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, He answered them, 
and said, The kingdom of God eometh not with observation. 21. Neither shall they 
say, Lo here ! or, Lo there ! for, behold, the kingdom of God i^within you." It is 
known with what impatience the Pharisees waited for the manifestations of the Mes- 
sianic kingdom. It is natural that they should desire to know the opinion of Jesus 
on the subject. Besides, they would have been glad to embarrass Him in the matter, 
or to drag from Him some heresy. Their question rested on a purely external view 
of this divine kingdom ; His advent appeared to their mind as a gieat and sudden 
dramatic act. In the gospel point of view, this expectation is certainly not altogether 
false ; but humanity must be prepared for the new external and divine state of things 
by a spiritual work wrought in the depths of the heart ; and it is this internal advent 
which Jesus thinks good to put first in relief before such interlocutors. The side of 
the truth which He thinks proper to set forth is, as usual, that which is mistaken by 
the parties addressing Him. To the Pharisee Nicodemus, who came to Him with a 
question analogous to that which His confreres are now putting, Jesus replies exactly 
in the same way. The expression : fxerd napaTT/pijoeoS, in such a icayasto be observed, 
relates to the observation of objects falling under the senses. The present epxercu, 
cometh, is that of the idea. Now, since the kingdom is not established in a visible 
manner, it might happen that it should be present without men suspecting it (11 : 20). 
And this is exactly the case (11 : 20 : lias surprised you). 

Lo here, lo there — these word's express the impression of those who think they see 
it coming ; Jesus puts in opposition to them His own behold. This last relates to 
the surprise which should be felt by His hearers on learning that the kingdom is 
already present. The words evroi vjugdv are explained by almost all modern inter- 
preters in the sense of, in the midst of you. Philologically this meaning is possible ; 
it may be harmonized with the yap. But the verb h6riv would in this case necessa- 
rily require to be put before the regimen ; for this verb is would have the emphasis, 
" it is really present. " The idea among you would be secondary. If the regimen 
hvxoS vjugSv has the emphasis (and its place proves that it has), it can only be because 
these words contain the reason introduced by for. They should therefore serve to 
prove that the kingdom of God may have come without its coming being remarked ; 
and this is what follows from its internal, spiritual nature. The meaning of this 
regimen is therefore, within you. Besides, the prep, hvroi, within, always includes 
a contrast to the idea without. If, therefore, we give to it here the meaning of among, 
we must still suppose an understood contrast, that between the Jews as people 
within, and the Gentiles as people without. There is nothing in the context giving 
rise to such an antithesis. In giving to evzoS the meaning within, we are led back 
to the idea expressed in the answer of Jesus to Nicodemus : " Except a man be born 
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," which confirms our explanation. 9 Edr/ 
is, like epxeraiy the present of essence. 

2d. Vers. 22-37. The Coming of the Kingdom. — To the Pharisees Jesus declared 
what they did not know, the spiritual essence of the kingdom. But Jesus did not 
mean to deny the external and final appearing of a divine state of things. To de- 
velop this other side of the truth, He turns to His disciples, because it is only to 
those who possess something of His spiritual life that He can speak profitably of His 
future return. Thus it is that the treatment of the same subject is modified, accord- 
ing to the character of those whom Jesus addresses. Besides, the abstract idea of 
the coming of the kingdom is now presented as the reappearing of Jesus Himself. 



404 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

The truth could only be expounded in this aspect to believers. We may see with 
what justice the Bevue de Theologie alleges : " The first two verses (vers. 20, 21) are in 
contradiction to the^rest, and have no connection with what follows !" (1867, p. 386). 

The discourse of Jesus bears on three points : 1st. When and how will Jesus re- 
appear (vers. 22-25) ? 2d. What will be the state of the world then (vers. 26-30) ? 
3d. What will be the moral condition of salvation in that last crisis (vers. 31-37) ? 

Vers. 22-25.* " And He said unto the disciples, The days will come when ye shall 
desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it. 23. And 
they shall say to you, See here ! or, see there ! go not after them, nor follow them. 
24. For as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth 
unto the other part under heaven ; so shall also the Son of man be in His day. 25. 
But first must He suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation." The 
course of thought is this : The kingdom, in the sense understood by the Pharisees, 
will not come immediately (ver. 22) ; and when it shall come, no uncertainty will be 
felt about His appearing (vers. 23, 24). Ver. 25 returns to the idea of ver. 22. 

'Hjuspai (ver. 22), days, long days, during which there will be time to sigh for the 
visible presence of the Master. Comp. 5 : 35. The desire to see one of the days of the 
Son of man may refer either to the painful regret of the Church when she recalls the 
happiness enjoyed by her while He was present on the earth, or to her impatient 
waiting for some manifestation from on high announcing that the day is at length 
near. Substantially, the first meaning leads to the second, as regret does to desire ; 
but the second idea is the dominant one, according to the context. When the 
apostles or their successors shall have passed a long time on the earth in the absence 
of their Lord, when they shall be at the end of their preaching and their apologetic 
demonstrations, and when around them scepticism, materialism, pantheism, and 
deism shall more and more gain the ascendency, then there shall be formed in their 
souls an ardent longing for that Lord who keeps silence and remains hid ; they will 
call for some divine manifestation, a single one (uiar), like that of the old days, to 
refresh their hearts and sustain the fainting Church. But to the end, the task will 
be to walk by faith (ovm 6ipe6Bs, ye shall not see). Need we be astonished if in such 
circumstances the faith of the great majority verges to extinction (18 : 8) ? 

With this heightening of expectation among believers there will correspond the 
seducing appeals of falsehood (ver. 23). Literally taken, this verse is in contradic- 
tion to ver. 21. But ver. 21 related to the spiritual kingdom, whose coming cannot 
be observed or proclaimed, while the subject now in question is the visible kingdom, 
the appearing of which shall be falsely announced. Why shall those announcements 
be necessarily false ? Ver. 24 gives the explanation. Gess exhibits the application of 
this teaching, on the one hand, to the folly of the Romanists who will have no Church 
without a visible head, and, on the other, to that of Protestant sectaries who expect 
the appearing of the kingdom of God to-day in Palestine, to-morrow in Russia, etc. 

Ver. 24, The Lord's coming will be universal and instantaneous. Men do not run 
here or there to see a flash of lightning : it shines simultaneously on all points of the 
horizon. So the Lord will appear at the same moment to the view of all living. His 
appearances as the Risen One in the upper room, when closed, are the prelude of this 
last advent. But if He is to return, He must go away, go away persecuted. This 

* Ver. 23. &. B 3 L., idov exsi before idov aode. 5 Mjj. omit 7] before idov. 5*. 
M., Kai idov. Ver. 24. All the Mjj., D. excepted, omit nai after sdrai. B. D. 
lt aHc >. omit ev rrj Tfjtiepa avrov. 



n 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 405 

is the subject of ver. 25. This generation can designate no other than the Jewish 
contemporaries of the Messiah. A separation is about to supervene between Israel 
and its now present Messiah. And this rejection of the Messiah by His own people 
will be the signal for the invisibility of His kingdom. Comp. the antithesis 13 : 35 
(the faith of Israel bringing back the Messiah from heaven). How long will this ab- 
normal state last ? Jesus Himself- knows not. But He declares that this epoch of 
His invisibility will terminate in an entirety materialistic state of things, vers. 26-30, 
which will be brought to an end suddenly by His advent. 

Vers. 26-30.* " And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the da} r s of 
the Son of man. 27. They did eat, they drank, they married, and were given in mar- 
riage, until the day that ISToe entered into the ark ; and the flood came, and destroyed 
them all. 28. Likewise also, as it was in the days of Lot ; they did eat, they drank, 
they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded ; 29. But the same day that Lot 
went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. 
30. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed." While be- 
lievers sigh with growing ardor for the return of their Lord, carnal security more or 
less complete takes possession of the race. It is an epoch like those which have pre- 
ceded all the great catastrophes of history. The business of earthly life is carried 
through with regularity ; but religious feeling gradually disappears from the heart of 
men who have become secularized. The days of Noe denote the 120 years during 
which the ark was a-building. " > E'£,£ycqu%ovTo strictly means, were given in marriage, 
that is to say, young daughters by their parents. The finite verbs rj6Biov, eitivov 
(ver. 28), £/3pei-E (ver. 29), are in apposition to kyavEzo, and, as such, are still depend- 
ent on cot. The apodosis does not occur till ver. 30. This form is analogous to the 
Hebrew construction which we have so often observed in Luke (kysvEro, with a finite 
verb for its subject). J 'E/3pe£e is generally regarded as active : God caused it to rain. 
Comp. Gen. 19 : 24, ncci uvpioS efips&v (Matt. 5 : 45). But as in this case the cat 
ovpavov would be pleonastic, and as Bpexoo is found in Polybius and the later 
Greek authors in a neuter sense, it is more natural to adopt this sense here, by which 
we at the same time preserve the parallelism between chtGoXe 6ev (subject, itvp nod 
Qezov) and the a7tGD/\.£6Ev, ver. 27 (subject, Marax/lv6judS). The word a.itoK<xkvTi- 
rerai supposes that Jesus is present, but that a veil conceals His person from the 
view of the world. All at once the veil is lifted, and the glorified Lord is visible to 
all. This term occurs again in the same sense, 1 Cor. 1 : 7 ; 2 Thess. 1 : 7 ; 1 Pet. 
1:7; and perhaps 1 Cor. 3 : 13. The point of comparison between this event and 
the examples quoted is the surprise caused in the bosom of security. Matt. 24 : 37-39 
contains a passage parallel to vers. 26, 27 (the example of Noe). The idea is the 
same ; but the terms are so different that they forbid us to assume that the two 
editions proceed from the same text. 

Vers. 31-37. f " In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff 

* Ver. 27. The mss. are divided between s&yajuiZovro (T. R.) and EyajuiZovro 
(Alex.). Ver. 28. &. B. L. R. X., kolQgqS instead of hccicdS. Ver. 30. The mss. are 
divided between Kara ravra (T. R. ) and Kara ra avra. 

f Ver. 32. B. L. It* 1 '"*., TrepinoLrjcaoQai instead of auaai. Ver. 33. &. B. D. R. 3 
Mnn. omit avrr\v after arroleor) or a-xo?.eaei. Ver. 34. All the Mjj., B. excepted, eiS 
instead of o eiS. Ver. 35. &* 1 Mn. omit this verse. Ver. 36. This verse is wanting 
in all the Mjj., D. U. excepted, in several Mnn. ItP leri i" e (taken from Matthew). 
Ver. 37. E. G. H. 25 Mnn., tttu/jui instead of aufxa. &. B. L. U. A. 30 Mnn. add kcu 
after eksl. $. B. L. Q., eTTiovvaxQyaovTai instead of cvvaxO^Govrai. 



406 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKfi. 

in the house, let him not come down to take it away : and he that is in the field, let 
him likewise not return back. 32. Remember Lot's wife. 33. Whosoever shall seek 
to save his life, shall lose it ; and whosoever shall lose his life, shall preserve it. 34. 
I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed ; the one shall be taken* 
and the other shall be left. 35. Two women shall be grinding together ; the one 
shall be taken, and the other left. 36, 37. And they answered and said unto Him, 
Where, Lord ? And He said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the 
eagles be gathered together." Here is the practical conclusion of the discourse. 
Jesus describes that disposition of mind which, in this last crisis, shall be the condi- 
tion of salvation. The Lord passes with His heavenly retinue. He attracts all the 
inhabitants of the earth who are willing and ready to join Him ; but it transpires in 
the twinkling of an eye. Whoever is not already loosened from earthly things, so as 
to haste away without hesitation, taking flight toward Him freely and joyously, 
remains behind. Thus precisely had Lot's wife perished with the goods, from which 
she could not part. Agreeably to His habitual method, Jesus characterizes this dis- 
position of mind by a series of external acts, in*which it is concretely realized. The 
Revue de Theologie (passage quoted, p. 337) condemns Luke for here applying to the 
Parousia the counsel to flee, which has no meaning, except as applied to the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem (Matt. 24). This accusation is false, for there is no mention of 
fleeing ivom. one part of the earth to another, but of rising from the earth to the Lord, 
as He passes and disappears : " Let him not come down (from the roof) ; but, forget- 
ting all that is in the house, let him be ready to follow the Lord !" So he who is in 
the fields is not to attempt to return home to carry upward with him some object of 
value. The Lord is there ; if any one belongs to Him let him leave everything at 
once to accompany Him (Matt. 24 : 18 : the laborer should not even return to seek his 
dress, which he laid aside to work). This saying, especially in the form of Matthew, 
evidently referred to the Parousia, which shall come suddenly, and not to the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem, which will be preceded by an armed invasion and a long war.* 
Luke's context is therefore preferable to Matthew's. Ver. 23. To save one's life, by 
riveting it to some object with which it is identified, is the means of losing it, of being 
left behind with this perishing world ; to give one's life, by quitting everything at 
once, is the only means of saving it, by laying hold of the Lord who is passing. See 
on 9 : 24. Jesus here substitutes for the phrase to save his life the word faoyoveiv, 
literally, to give it birth alive. The word is that by which the LXX. express the Piel 
and Hiphil of fpn> to live. Here it is having the natural life born again, that it may 
be reproduced in the form of spiritual, glorified, eternal life. The absolute sacrifice 
of the natural life is the means of this transformation. Here is a word of unfathom- 
able depth and of daily application. 

At this time a selection will take place (ver. 34) — a selection which will instan- 
taneously break all earthly relations, even the most intimate, and from which there 
will arise a new grouping of humanity in two new families or societies, the taken and 
the left. Aeyu ifiiv, I tell you, announces something weighty. Bleek thinks, that as 
the subject under discussion is the return of the Lord as judge, to be taken is to 
perish, to be left is to escape. But the middle 7rapaAafi(3dveGQai, to take to one's self to 

* Our author here speaks with a confidence not shared by the bulk of commenta- 
tors, and puts a force into the reference to " the stuff," which is not necessarily in it. 
The destruction of Jerusalem foreshadows features of the judgment, and is not 
overlooked. — J. H. 







COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 407 

welcome as one's own, can only have a favorable meaning (John 14 : 3). And St. 
Paul certainly understood the word in this sense ; for it is probably not without rela- 
tion to this saying that he teaches, 1 Thess. 4 : 17, the taking up into the air of the 
believers who are alive at the return of Christ ; it is the ascension of the disciples, as 
the complement of their Master's. 'A<j>iivai, to forsake, to leave behind, as 13 : 35. 
The image of ver. 34 supposes that the Parousia takes place at night. Ver. 35, on 
the contrary, supposes it happening during the day. It matters little. For one 
hemisphere it will be in the day ; for the other, at night. The idea remains tin 
same : whether he is sleeping, or whether he is working, man ought to be sufficient!} 
disengaged to give himself over without delay to the Lord who draws him. Hand- 
mills were used among the ancients. When the millstone was large, two persons 
turned it together. Ver. 36, which is wanting in almost all the Mjj., is taken from 
the parallel passage in Matthew. Thus the beings who shall have been most closely 
connected here below, shall, in the twinkling of an eye, be parted forever. 

The apostle's question (ver. 37) is one of curiosity. Although Jesus had already 
answered it in ver. 24, He takes advantage of it to close the conversation by a declar- 
ation which applies it to the whole world. The natural phenomenon, described by 
Job 39 : 30, is used by Jesus to symbolize the universality of the judgment pro- 
claimed. The carcass is humanity entirely secular, and destitute of the life of God 
(vers. 26-30 ; comp. 9 : 60, Let the dead . . . ). The eagles represent punishment 
alighting on such a society. There is no allusion in this figure to the Roman stand- 
ards, for there is no reference in the preceding discourse to the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem. Comp. also Matt. 24 : 28, where this saying applies exclusively to the Parousia. 
The eagle, properly so called, does not live in flocks, it is true, and does not feed on 
carrion. But aerds, as well as -j^j, Pro v. 30 : 17, may (as Furrer shows, "Bedeut. 
der Bibl. Geogr. " p. 13) denote the great vulture (gypsfulvus), equal to the eagle in 
size and strength, which is seen in hundreds on the plain of Gennesareth. Some 
Fathers have applied the image of the body to Jesus glorified, and that of the eagles 
to the saints who shall accompany Him at His advent ! 

3d. 18 : 1-8.* The Widow and the Unjust Judge. — This parable is peculiar to Luke. 
The formula eleye 61 nal, "furthermore, hear this also," announces it as the con- 
clusion of the whole discourse 17 : 20, et seq. Weizsacker (p. 139) and Holtzmann 
(p. 132) think that the introduction, ver. 1, gives this parable a commonplace appli- 
cation (the duty of perseverance in prayer), which does not belong to the original idea 
of this discourse (the imminence of the Parousia). But is there not a very close corre- 
spondence between the duty of persevering prayer, and the danger which the Church 
runs of being overcome by the carnal slumber which has just been described in the 
preceding portraiture ? The Son of man has been rejected ; He has gone from view ; 
the masses are plunged in gross worldliness ; men of God are become as rare as in 
Sodom. What is, then, the position of the Church ? That of a widow whose only 
weapon is incessant prayer. It is only by means of this intense concentration that 
faith will be preserved. But such is precisely the disposition which, Jesus fears, 

* Ver. 1. & B. L. M. several Mnn. It all i. omit nai after Se. 15 Mjj. 60 Mnn. add 
avrovS after irpooevxeoQai. The mss. are divided between tKKaKe.iv and eyKaKeiv. Ver. 
3. The Mjj., A. excepted, omit ™s after tie. Ver. 4. The mss. are divided oetween 
rfizkr\ozv (T. R.) and rjBeWev (Alex.). 2*. B. L. X. ItP leri< i ue , ovde avOpwxop instead of 
Kai avQpwKov ovk. Ver. 7. &. B. L. Q., avro) instead of npos amov. &. A. B. D. L. Q. 
X. II. 3 Mnn., fuzKpoQvfxet instead of juaKpoSv/uuu. 



408 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

may not be found even in the Church at His return. The parable is therefore placed 
here most appropriately, and the introduction is in perfect keeping with its first 
intention. Comp. 21 : 34-36, where we find the same ideas in correspondence — the 
danger of being spiritually overcharged in the last times, and the duty of unceasing- 
vigilance and prayer. 'EiucaKeiv, to relax, to let go, not to hold determinedly to one's 
rights, like the widow. 

There lies at the foundation of this parable, as in those of the indiscreet friend 
and the lost sheep (11 and 15), an argument d fortiori : " Were God like this judge, 
He would not resist the Church's believing prayer ; how much less, being what He 
is !" The condition of the Church after the Lord's departure is like that of a widow, 
and of a widow deprived of her rights. The Lord has acquired for His own glorious 
prerogatives, which have not yet passed into the domain of facts, and the enjoyment 
of which, if they esteem them at their just value, they should claim without ceasing. 
} Ek6iksIv (ver. 3) ; to deliver (e/c) by a judicial sentence (SIkt]). This term does not 
therefore include the notion of vengeance, but that of justice to be rendered to the 
oppressed. If vTrumdfriv, to disfigure the face, be taken in the weakened sense of 
importuning, it will be necessary to understand els tsXoS, to the end: "Lest she 
importune me to the end (indefinitely)." But ]\|eyer prefers keeping the strict sense, 
both of the verb and of els relog (at last) : " Lest she come at last to strike me." The 
participle spxofxevr/, coming to me, decides in favjor of this second meaning. There is 
in this saying a touch of pleasantry. Ver 6. "Sear: for there is a lesson to be 
drawn even from this impious language." Ver. 7. The continual crying of the elect 
recalls the ardent desire of believers to see one of the days of the Son of man, 17 : 22. 
The elect are those whom God has drawn by the calling of Jesus from the bosom of 
lost humanity, agreeably to the eternal plan of salvation. If we read /uaKpoOvfiel 
(Alex.), we must give this proposition the interrogative meaning : " Will He not do 
right . . . and will He he slow in their behalf, that is to say, to punish those who 
oppress them ?" But the sense which must thus be given to en' abrols is not natural. 
It is much better, therefore, to read : ftanpodv/Lifiv, the meaning of which is (with/cat) : 
" Though He restrain His anger on account of His [oppressed] elect." God suffers 
with them (Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ?) ; and therefore Jesus can say of 
God, that He restrains Himself on their account. If, then, He does not interpose 
immediately to deliver them, it is not from indifference ; it is from long-suffering to 
their oppressors. Comp. 2 Pet. 3:9. It is nowhere said that the object of the un- 
ceasing cry of the elect is the punishment of their adversaries, which would not be in 
keeping with the figure of the parable ; it is their own deliveraribe, by their being put 
in possession of the heritage to which they are entitled. But God, it is true, cannot 
grant this petition without breaking the power of those who stand in the way of this 
act of justice. It is to this aspect of His answer that allusion is made by the 
fj,aKpoSvfieiv. 

'Ev T&xet, speedily, does not at all mean that the limit of divine forbearance is near, 
which would be inconsistent with the long interval of time announced in the words, 
days will come . . . (17 : 22). The word rather signifies, that the hearing once 
given, the deliverance will be accomplished with small delay, in the twinkling of an 
eye ; comp. Rom. 16 : 20 (where, too, we should translate not shortly, but very 
quickly). JITltjv : " I am not afraid of the Judge failing in His duty. The only thing 
which makes me anxious is this, lest the widow fail in hers." Tl)v niariv : not some 
faith in general, but the faith — that special faith of which the widow's is an image, 



// 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 409 

which, in spite of the judge's obstinate silence and long apparent indifference, perse- 
veres in claiming its right. On the earth, in opposition to the Son of man who comes 
again from heaven. We must here remember the sad picture of the state of humanity 
at this epoch (17 : 26-30). Is it not to such a state of things that Jesus also makes 
allusion, Matt. 25 : 5 : " And they all slumbered and slept" ? 

Hilgenfeld .and others find in this parable a thirst for vengeance, which corre- 
sponds rather with the furious zeal of the Apocalypse than the true Pauline feeling of 
Luke. This passage must therefore be " one of those most ancient parts of our 
Gospel" which Luke borrowed from a Jewish document. Others, like De Wette, see 
in it, on the contrary, the traces of a later period, when the Church had become the 
victim of persecution. But, 1. This alleged thirst for vengeance nowhere appears in 
the text. 2. Our passage is full of gentleness in comparison with expressions of 
indignation used by Paul himself (Rom. 2 : 4, 5, 8, 9 ; 1 Thess. 3 : 15, 16 ; 2 Thess. 
1 : 8). The spirit of this parable is therefore not in the least opposed to that of the 
Pauline Luke. 3. There is allusion, no doubt, to the abnormal position of the 
Church between Christ's departure and His return, but not to persecution strictly so 
called. 

While Hilgenfeld affects to distinguish in this piece the originally Ebionite pas- 
sages (17 : 1-4, 11-19 ; 18 : 1-8) from those which are of Luke's composition (17 ; 5-10, 
20-37 ; 18 : 1-14), Volkmar (" Evangel. Marcions," p. 203) maintains that the arrange- 
ment of the piece is systematic, and rests on the well-known Pauline triad : love 
(17 : 1-4), faith (vers. 5-19), hope (ver. 30, et seq.). But it is easy to see how forced it 
is to apply any such scheme to those different accounts. 

3. The Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican : 18 : 9-14. — Vers. 9-14.* This 
parable is peculiar to Luke. Who are those nveS, certain, to whom it is addressed ? 
They cannot be Pharisees. Luke would have named them, as at 16 : 14 ; and Jesus 
would not have presented to them as an example, in a parable, one of themselves, 
while designating him expressly in this character. Bleek thinks that they were disci- 
ples of Jesus. But Luke would have equally designated them (16 : 1). They were 
therefore probably members of the company following Jesus, who had not yet openly 
declared for Him, and who manifested a naught}' distance to certain sinners, known 
to be such, who were in the company with them ; comp. 19 : 7. The word oraQels, 
standing erect (ver. 11), indicates a posture of assurance, and even boldness (comp. 
standing afar off, ver. 13). Ilpds kavrbv does not depend on araSeis : " standing 
aside, at a distance, from the vulgar"— it would have required /caQ' kavrov (Meyer) — 
but on irpooTjvxero : " he prayed, speaking thus to himself . . ." It was less a 
prayer in which he gave thanks to God, than a congratulation which he addressed to 
himself. True thanksgiving is always accompanied by a feeling of humiliation. 
The Pharisees fasted on the Monday and Thursday of every week. KraaBai denotes 
the act of acquiring rather than that of possessing ; it therefore refers here to the 
produce of the fields (11 : 42). To strike the breast : an emblem of the stroke of death 
which the sinner feels that he has merited at the hand of God. The heart is struck, 
as the seat of personal life and of sin. At'yu vfi.lv (ver. 14) : "I tell you, strange as it 
may appear . . ." The idea of justification, that is to say, of a righteousness 
bestowed on the sinner by a divine sentence, belongs even to the O. T. Comp. Gen. 
15 : 6 ; Isa. 1 : 8, 53 : 11. In the received reading % knelvoS, % is governed by (iuIaov, 

* Ver. 9. The mss. are divided between enrev and enrev de mi. Ver. 11. ft. 
jtpierique^ omit irpoS eavrov. Ver. 12. ft. B. , anodenaTevu instead of anode/cario. Ver. 
13. ft. B. G. L. 5 Mnn. Syr cur ., ode reluvrj^ instead of icai o reAuvrjc. 8 Mjj. 15 
Mnn. It. Vg. omit eis before to orr/Oos. Ver. 14. Instead of v eneivos (T. R. with 
some Mnn.), 16 Mjj. and 150 Mnn. read rj yap eneivoc, and ft. B. L., nap' eneLvov, 



410 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

rather, understood. The suppression of tbe adverb rather serves to prevent the idea 
that the Pharisee also received his share of justification. In the reading % ytip knelvos 
(more strongly supported than the others), n is explained in the same way, and yap 
has as is often the case an interrogative value : " For think you that he (the Pharisee) 
could be justified ?" This somewhat difficult turn of expression has occasioned the 
Alex, correction Trap' eksIvov. Our Lord loves to close His parables with' axioms 
formally expressing the fundamental laws of moral life : God will overthrow all self- 
exaltation ; but He will turn in love to all sincere humiliation. 

Undoubtedly if Luke's object was to point out in the ministry of Jesus the histori- 
cal foundations for St. Paul's teaching, this piece corresponds most exactly to his 
intention. But no argument can be drawn therefrom contrary to the truth of the 
narrative. For the idea of justification by faith is one of the axioms not only of the 
teaching of Jesus, but of that of the O. T. (comp. besides the passages quoted, Hab. 
2:4). 

i 

4. The Children brought to Jems: 18 : 15-17.— Vers. 15-17.* It is here that 
Luke's narrative rejoins Matthew's (19 : 14) and Mark's (10 : 13), after having 
diverged from them at 9 : 51. Jesus is in Perea. Of his sojourn in this province 
Matthew and Mark have as yet related only one fact — the conversation with the 
Pharisees regarding divorce, summarily reproduced by Luke 16 : 13-19. 

By the phrase : even infants (nai rd . . .), ver. 15, Luke would indicate that 
the consideration enjoyed by Jesus had reached its height. Mothers brought him 
even their nurslings. The article before Pptyri denotes the category. The apostles 
think that this is to abuse the goodness and time of their Master. Mark, who likes 
to depict moral impressions, describes the indignation felt by Jesus {ijyavdKTTjae) on 
perceiving this feeling. Luke is less severe — the evangelist who is accused of abus- 
ing the Twelve. After calling back those little ones who were being sent away (avra) 
Jesus instructs His disciples in respect of them. Matthew, as usual, summarizes. 
There is in children a twofold receptivity, negative and positive, humility and confi- 
dence. By labor expended on ourselves, we are to return to those dispositions which 
are natural to the child. The pronoun rfiv toiovtov, of such, does not refer to other 
children, such as those present, but to all those who voluntarily put on the disposi- 
tions indicated. Jesus, according to Mark, clasped those children tenderly in His 
arms, and put his hands on them, blessing them. Matthew speaks only of the impo- 
sition of hands. These touching details are omitted by Luke. For what reason, if 
he knew them ? They agreed so well with the spirit of his Gospel ! Volkmar (" Die 
Evangel." p. 487) explains this omission by the prosaic character of Luke (!). 
According to the same author, these little children represent the Gentiles saved by 
grace. Party dogmatics, even in this the simplest narrative of the Gospel ! 

5. The Rich Young Man : vers. 18-30. — In the three Syn. this piece immediately 
follows the preceding (Matt. 19 : 16 ; Mark 10 : 17). Oral tradition had connected 
the two, perhaps because there existed between them a real chronological succession. 
Three parts : 1st. The conversation with the young man (vers. 18-23) ; 2d. The con- 
versation which takes place in regard to him (vers. 24-27) ; 3d. The conversation of 
Jesus with the disciples regarding themselves (vers. 28-30). 

* Ver. 15. 1*. B. D. G. L. some Mnn., eireTificov instead of Eirerifirjaav. Ver. 16. &. 
B. D. G. L. 4 Mnn. Syr sch ., ■KpooeKakeoaro (or . . . Aeiro) avra leyov instead of 
Trpoana'Xeoa.uevoS avra emev. 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 411 

1st Vers. 18-23.* The Mich Young Man.— Luke gives this man the title a PX uv, 
chief, which probably signifies here, president of the synagogue. Matthew and Mark 
simply say els. Later, Matthew calls him a young man (ver. 20). His arrival is 
given with dramatic effect by Mark : He came running, and kneeled down before Mm. 
He sincerely desired salvation, and he imagined that some generous action, some 
great sacrifice, would secure this highest good ; and this hope supposes that man has 
power of himself to do good ; that therefore he is radically good. This is what is 
implied in his apostrophe to Jesus : good master ; for it is the man in Him whom he 
thus salutes, knowing Him as yet in no other character. Jesus, by refusing this title 
in the false sense in which it is given Him, does not accuse Himself of sin, as has 
been alleged. If He had had a conscience burdened with some trespass, He would 
have avowed it explicitly. But Jesus reminds him that all goodness in man, as in 
every creature whatsoever, must flow from God. This axiom is the very foundation 
of Monotheism. Thereby He strikes directly at the young man's fundamental error. 
So far as Jesus is concerned, the question of His personal goodness depends solely on 
the consideration whether His inward dependence on that God, the only good, is 
complete or partial. If it is complete, Jesus is good, but with a goodness which is 
that of God Himself operating in Him. His answer does not touch this personal side 
of the question. In Matthew, at least according to the Alex, reading, which is prob- 
ably the true one, the word good is omitted in the young man's address, and the 
answer of Jesus is conceived in these terms : " Why askest thou me about what is 
good? One only is good." Which may signify : " Good is being joined to God, 
the only good ;" or : " Good is fulfilling the commandments of God, the only good 
Being." These two explanations are both unnatural. Even Bleek does not hesitate 
here to prefer the form of Luke and Mark. That of Matthew is perhaps a modifica- 
tion arising from the fear of inferences hostile to the purity of Jesus, which might be 
drawn from the form of His answer, as it has been transmitted to us by the two 
other Syn. 

Jesus has just rectified the young man's radical mistake. Now He replies to his 
question. The work to be done is to love. Jesus quotes the second table, as bearing 
on works of a more external and palpable kind, and consequently more like one of 
those which the young man expected to be mentioned. This answer of Jesus is ear- 
nest ; for to love is to live ! (See at 10 : 28. ) The only question is how we can attain 
to it. But Jesus proceeds like a wise instructor. Far from arresting on their way 
those who believe in their own strength, He encourages them to prosecute it faithfully 
to the very end, knowing well that if they are sincere they shall by the law die to the 
law (Gal. 2 : 19). As Gess says : "To take the law in thorough earnest is the true way 
to come to Jesus Christ. " The young man's reply (ver. 21) testifies, undoubtedly, 
great moral ignorance, but also noble sincerity. He knows not the spiritual meaning 
of the commandments, and thinks that he has really fulfilled them. Here occurs the 
inimitable stroke of Mark's pencil: "And Jesus, beholding him, loved him." 
When critics wish to make out Mark to be the compiler of the two other evangelists, 
they are obliged to say, with De Wette, that Mark himself, inventing this amiable 

* Ver. 20. 10 Mjj. 25 Mnn. It ali< *. Vg. omit gov after utirepa. Ver. 21. ». A. B. 
L. 2 Mnn., ecj>vla^a instead of e<t>v2.a%au7}v. Ver. 22. J*. B. D. L. some Mnn. Syr. omit 
ravra after a/cot eras 6e. &. F. H. V. several Mnn., on instead of en. The mss. are 
divided between dtados and 6oS (taken from the parallels), and between ovpavu (T. R.) 
and ovpavoiS (Alex.). Ver. 23. &. B, L., eyevqQr] instead of eyevero. 



412 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

answer, has ascribed to Jesus his own feelings. "We see much rather in this saying, 
one of those strokes which reveal the source whence the narratives of Mark proceed, 
and which must have been one very near the person of Jesus, It was an apostle who 
was following the impressions of Jesus as they depicted themselves in His counte- 
nance, and who caught as it passed the look of tenderness which He cast on this 
person so sincere and so innocent. This look of love was also a scrutinizing look 
(efj,(3/iiil>as avTti, Mark 5 : 21), by which Jesus discerned the good and bad qualities of 
the heart, and which dictated to Him the following saying. The <Je, with anovcaS 
(ver. 22), is adversative and progressive. It announces a new resolution taken by the 
Lord. He determines to call this man into the number of His permanent disciples. 
The real substance of His answer, indeed, is not the order to distribute his goods, but 
the call to follow Him. The giving away of his money is only the condition of enter- 
ing upon that new career which is open to him (see at 10 : 61, 12 : 33). In the pro- 
posal which He makes to him, Jesus observes the character which best corresponds 
to the desire expressed by the young man. He asked of Him some work to do ; 
and Jesus points out one, and that decisive, which perfectly corresponds to his object, 
inasmuch as it assures him of salvation. To disengage one's self from everything in 
order to follow Jesus conclusively — such is really salvation, life. The formal corre- 
spondence of this answer to the young man'p thought appears in the expression, One 
thing thou lackest (Luke and Mark) ; and more clearly still in that of Matthew, If thou 
wilt be perfect, go . . . Undoubtedly, according to the view of Jesus, man cannot 
do more or better than fulfil the law (Matt. 5 : 17, 48). Only the law must be under- 
stood not in the letter, but in the spirit (Matt. 5). The perfection to which Jesus 
calls the young man is not the fulfilling of a law superior to the law strictly so called, 
but the real fulfilling, in opposition to that external, literal fulfilling which the young- 
man already had (ver. 21). This one thing which he lacks is the spirit of the law, 
that is, love ready to give everything : this is the whole of the law (Luke 6). The 
words, Thou shalt have treasure in heaven, do not signify that this almsgiving will 
open heaven to him, but that, when he shall have entered into this abode, he will find 
there, as the result of his sacrifice, grateful beings, whose love shall be to him an in- 
exhaustible treasure (see at 16 : 9). The act, which is the real condition of entering 
heaven, is indicated by the last word, to which the whole converges, Follow me. The 
mode of following Jesus varies according to times. At that time, in order to be in- 
wardly attached to Him, it was necessary for a man to follow Him externally, and 
consequently to abandon his earthly position. At the present day, when Jesus lives 
no more in the body here below, the only condition is the spiritual one, but with all 
those moral conditions which flow from our relation to Him, according to each one's 
character and place. The sorrow which this answer occasions the young man is ex- 
pressed by Mark in the most dramatic way : He heaved a deep sigh (oTvyvaoa; ). The 
Gospel of the Hebrews thus described this scene : " Then the rich man began to 
scratch his head, for that was not to his mind. And the Lord said to him : How, 
then, canst thou say, I have kept the law ; for it is written in the law, Thou shalt 
love thy neighbor as thyself ; and lo ! many of thy brethren, children of Abraham, 
live in the gutter, and die of hunger, while thy table is loaded with good things, and 
nothing is sent out to them ?"* Such is the writing which some modern critics (e.g. 
Baur) allege to be the original of our Matthew, and the parent of our synoptical 
literature ! 

* Quoted by Origen, in Matt. 19 : 19. 

J 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 413 

• 

2d. Vers. 24-27.* The Conversation regarding the Rich Man. — It is not the fact of 
proprietorship which hinders the soul from taking its flight to spiritual blessings ; it 
is the feeling of security which it inspires. So, in Mark, Jesus says, in explanation 
of His first declaration : " How hard is it for them thai trust in riches to enter . . . !" 
The Shemites denote the impossibility of a thing by the image of a heavily laden 
camel arriving at a city gate which is low and narrow, and through which it cannot 
pass. Then, to give this image the piquant form which the Oriental proverb loves, 
this gate is transformed into the eye of a needle. Some commentators and copyists, 
not understanding this figure, have changed Ka/uyhoS, camel, into ndpn/os (the y "was 
pronounced i), a very unusual word, which does not occur even in the ancient lex J- 
cographers, and which, it is alleged, sometimes denotes a ship's cable. In the re- 
ceived text (rpu/za/UdS fiaipldos), (xupidoS is a correction borrowed from Mark and Mat- 
thew ; the true reading in Luke is BeAovyS, which also signifies needle. Instead of the 
word Tpvfia/iia, the Alex, read rpviryfia (or rprj/xa). The first form might come from 
Mark ; but it is more probable that it is the second which is taken from Matthew, 
the Gospel most generally used. We must therefore read in Luke, rpv/iahids (3e2.6vyS. 

To exclude the rich from salvation was, it seemed, to exclude all ; for if the most 
blessed among men can only be saved with difficulty, what will become of the rest ? 
Such appears to be the connection between vers. 25 and 26. De "Wette joins them 
in a somewhat different way : "As every one more or less seeks riches, none there- 
fore can be saved." This connection is less natural. Jesus, according to Matthew 
and Mark, at this point turns on His disciples a look full of earnestness (kn&Aeipas 
av-ols, looking upon them) : "It is but too true ; but there is a sphere in which the 
impossible is possible, that of the divine operation (n-apa ru ee<p,-ioit7i God.)" Thus 
Jesus in the twinkling of an eye lifts the mind of His hearers from human works, of 
which alone the young man was thinking, to that divine work of radical regeneration 
which proceeds from the One only good, and of which Jesus is alone the instru- 
ment. Comp. a similar and equally rapid gradation of ideas, John 3:2,5. Which 
would have Jieen better for this young man — to leave his goods to become the com- 
panion in labor of the St. Peters and St. Johns, or to keep those possessions so soon 
to be laid waste by the Roman legions ? 

3d. Vers. 28-30. f The Conversation regarding the Disciples. — There had been a day 
in the life of the disciples when a similar alternative had been put before them ; they 
had resolved it in a different way. What was to accrue to them from the course which 
they had taken ? Peter asks the question innocently, in the name of all. The form of 
his inquiry in Matthew, WJiat shall we have therefore ? contains, more expressly than 
that of Luke and Mark, the idea of an expected recompense. In Matthew, the Lord 
enters at once into Peter's thought, and makes a special promise to the Twelve, one of 
the grandest which He addressed to them. Then, in the parable of the laborers, He 
warns them against indulging pride, on the ground that they have been the first to 
follow Him. It is difficult fully to harmonize this parable with the special promise 

* Ver. 24. &. B. L. 4 Mnn. omit izepiAwKov yevojievov. B. L. , etoTropevovrcu instead 
of etaeXevcovrat. Ver. 25. S. 7 Mnn., KajuAov instead of Ka/xyAov. 8. B. D. rpy[iaTo<i, 
L. R. TpvTTTj/uaToS , instead of rpv/ia/aas. &. B. D. L. 8 Mnn., fielovys instead of 
pa<ptdoS. A. D. M. P. 20 Mnn. Syr cur . ltP leri< i ue , Vg., duAdeiv instead of ucelideLv. 

f Ver. 28. 5* c B. D. L. some Mnn. ItP leri( i ue , aQevTeS uha instead of ayyuaLiEV -jravra 
Kai. Ver. 30. &. B. L. 3 Mnn., o? ovxt instead of oS w. B. D. M. 10 Mnn., Aafiy in- 
stead of a-o/.apT/. 



414 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

i 

which precedes it, without holding that the promise was conditional, and was not to 
be fulfilled, except in so far as they did not abandon themselves to the spirit of pride 
combated in the parable, which savors of refinement. As, therefore, Luke places 
this same promise in a wholly different setting, 22 : 28-30, a context with which it 
perfectly agrees, it is probable that Matthew placed it here through an association of 
ideas which admits of easy explanation. According to Luke and Mark, the promise 
by which Jesus answered Peter is such as to apply to all believers ; and it behoved 
to be so, if Jesus did not wish to favor the feeling of self -exaltation which breathed 
in the question of the apostle. There is even in the form, There is no man 
that . . . (Mark and Luke), the express intention to give to this promise the 
widest possible application. All the relations of natural life find their analogies in 
the bonds formed by community of faith. Hence there arises for the believer a com- 
pensation for the painful rupture of fleshly ties, which Jesus knew so well by expe- 
rience (8 : 19-21 ; comp. with 8 : 1-8) ; and every true believer can, like Him, speak 
of fathers and mothers, brethren and children, who form his new spiritual family. 
Luke and Mark speak, besides, of houses ; Matthew, of lands. The communion of 
Christian love in reality procures for each /believer the enjoyment of every sort of 
good belonging to his brethren ; yet, to prevent His disciples from supposing that it 
is an earthly paradise to which He is invitjing them, He adds in Mark, with perse- 
cutions. Matthew and Luke had assuredly no dogmatic reason for omitting this impor- 
tant correction, if they had known it. Luke likewise omits here the maxim, " Many 
that are first shall be last, etc. . . ." with which this piece closes in Mark, and 
which in Matthew introduces the parable of the laborers. 

The common source of the three Syn. cannot be the proto-Mark, as Holtz- 
mann will have it, unless we hold it to be at their own hand that Luke ascribes to 
this rich man the title, ruler of the synagogue, and that Matthew calls him a young 
man. As to Luke's Ebionite tendency, criticism is bound to acknowledge, with this 
piece before it, that if salvation by voluntary poverty is really taught in our Gospel, 
it is not less decidedly so by the other two Syn. that it is a heresy, consequently, 
not of Luke, but of Jesus — or rather, a sound exegesis can find no such thing in the 
doctrines which our three evangelists agree in putting in the Master's mduth. 

6. The Third Announcement of the Passion: 18 : 31-34.— Vers. 31-34. Twice 
already Jesus had announced to His disciples His approaching sufferings (9 : 18, et 
seq., 43, et seq.) ; yet, as proved by the request of the two sons of Zebedee (Matt. 
20 : 20 ; Mark 10 : 35), their hopes constantly turned toward an earthly kingdom. In 
renewing the announcement of His Passion, Jesus labors to abate the offence which 
this event will occasion, and even to convert it into a support for their faith, when at 
a later date they shall compare this catastrophe with the sayings by which He pre- s 
pared them for it (John 13 : 19). Mark prefaces this third announcement by a 
remarkable introduction (10 : 32). Jesus walks before them on the road ; they fol- 
low, astonished and alarmed. This picture reminds us of the expression, He set His 
face steadfastly (Luke 9 : 51), as well as of the sayings of the disciples and of Thomas 
(John 11 : 8, 16). What substantial harmony under this diversity of form ! In 
general, Luke does not quote prophecies ; he does so here once for all, and, as it 
were, in the mass. The dative, rti viti, may be made dependent on yeypafifieva, 
"written for the Son of man," as the sketch of His course ; or TEleaBrjaeTat, " shall 
be accomplished in respect to the Son of man, " in His person. The first construction 
is simpler. The form of the fut. passive used by Luke denotes passive abandonment 
to suffering more forcibly than the active futures used by Matthew and Mark. The 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 415 

kind of death is not indicated in Luke and Mark so positively as in Matthew (oravpu)- 
oai) ; nevertheless the details in this third announcement are more precise and more 
dramatic than in the preceding. See at 9 : 45. On ver. 34 Riggenbach justly 
observes : " Toward everything which is contrary to natural desire, there is produced 
in the heart a blindness which nothing but a miracle can heal." 

As ver. 34 has no parallel in the other two Syn. , Holtzmann thinks that Luke makes 
this reflection a substitute for the account of the request preferred by Zebedee's sons, 
which is found here in the narratives of Matthew and Mark. But does not a perfectly 
similar reflection occur in the sequel of the second announcement of the Passion 
(9 : 45), where no such intention is admissible ? It is difficult for those who regard 
Luke's Gospel as systematically hostile to the Twelve, to explain the omission of a 
fact so unfavorable to two of the leading apostles. Volkmar (" Die Evangel." p. 
501) has found the solution : Luke wishes to avoid offending the Judeo- Christian 
party, which he desires to gain over to Paulinism ! So, artful fn what he says, more 
artful in his silence— such is Luke in the estimate of this school of criticism ! 

7. The Healing of Bartimeus : 18:35-43. — John's very exact narrative serves 
to complete the synoptical account. The sojourn of Jesus in Perea was inter- 
rupted by the call which led Jesus to Bethany to the help of Lazarus (John 11). 
Thence He proceeds to Ephraim, on the Samaritan side, where He remained in retire- 
ment with His disciples (John 11 : 54). It was doubtless at this time that the third 
announcement of His Passion took place. On the approach of the feast of Passover, 
He went down the valley of the Jordan, rejoining at Jericho the Galilean caravans 
which arrived by way of Perea. He had resolved this time to enter Jerusalem with 
the greatest publicity, and to present Himself to the people and to the Sanhedrim in 
the character of a king. It was His hour, the hour of His manifestation, expected 
long ago by Mary (John 2 : 4), and which His brethren (John 7 : 6-8) had thought to 
precipitate. 

Vers. 35-43.* Luke speaks of a blind man sitting by the wayside, whom Jesus 
cured as He came nigh to Jericho ; Mark gives this man's name, Bartimeus ; accord- 
ing to his account, it was as Jesus went out of Jericho that He healed him ; finally, 
Matthew speaks of two blind men, who were healed as Jesus departed from the city. 
The three accounts harmonize, as in so many cases, only in the words of the dia- 
logue ; the tenor of the sufferer's prayer and of the reply of Jesus is almost identical 
in the three (ver. 38 and parallel). Of those three narratives, that of Mark is undoubt- 
edly the most exact and picturesque ; and in the case of a real difference, it is to this 
evangelist that we must give the preference. It has been observed, however (Andreae 
Beweis des Olaubens, July and August, 1870), that Josephus and Eusebius distin- 
guished between tHe old and the new Jericho, and that the two blind men might have 
been found, the one as they went out of the one city, the other at the entrance of the 
other. Or, indeed, it is not impossible that two cures took place on that day, the one 
on the occasion of their entrance into the city, the other on their leaving it, which 
Matthew has combined ; Luke applying to the one, following a tradition slightly 
altered, the special details which had characterized the other. This double modifica- 
tion might have been the more easily introduced into the oral narrative, if Jesus, 
coming from Ephraim to Jericho, entered the city, as is very probable, by the same 
road and by the same gate by which He left it to go to Jerusalem. If there were 

* Ver. 35. 2*. B. D. L., enacTuv instead of Trpooatruv. Ver. 38. A. E. K. II. 10 
Mnn. Omit Irjaov. Ver. 39. B. D. L. P. X. some Mnn., oiyrjoTi instead of trtuirijoe, 
Ver, 41. J*. B. D. L. X. omit /Uywv before n, 



4l6 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

two blind men, they might then have been healed almost on the same spot. The 
name Bartimeus {son of Timeus), which Mark has preserved, comes either from the 
Greek name TtpaioS, the honorable, or from the Aramaic, same, samia, blind ; blind, 
son of the blind (Hitzig, Keim). Mark adds : the blind man. The term suggests the 
name by which he was known in the place. 

The address, son of David, is a form of undisguised Messianic worship. This 
utterance would suffice to show the state of men's minds at that time. The rebuke 
addressed to him by the members of the company (ver. 39) has no bearing whatever 
on the use of this title. It seems to them much rather that there is presumption en 
the part of a beggar in thus stopping the progress of so exalted a personage. The 
reading of the T. R, ciwrrjay, is probably taken from the parallels. We must read, 
with the Alex. : aiyTja^ (a term more rarely used). Nothing could be more natural 
than the sudden change which is effected in the conduct of the multitude, as soon as 
they observe the favorable disposition of Jesus ; they form so many inimitable char- 
acteristics preserved by Mark only. With a majesty truly royal, Jesus seems to 
open up to the beggar the treasures of divine power : " What wilt thou that I shall 
do unto thee ?" and to give him, if we may so speak, carte blanche (5 : 41). 

Irf replying to the blind man's prayer, ver. 42, He says, thy faith, not, my power, 
to impress on him the value of that disposition, in view of the still more important 
spiritual miracle which remains to be wrought in him, and, hath saved thee, not, hath 
made thee whole ; although his life was in no danger, to show him that in this cure 
there lies the beginning of his salvation, if he will keep up the bond of faith between 
him and the Saviour's person. Jesus allows Bartimeus to give full scope to his grati- 
tude, and the crowd to express aloud their admiration and joy. The time for cau- 
tious measures is past. Those feelings to which the multitude give themselves up are 
the breath preceding that anticipation of 'Pentecost which is called Palm Bay. 
kotfigiiv relates to the power, alvelv to the goodness of God (2 : 20). 



The undeniable superiority of Mark's narrative obliges Bleek to give up here, at 
least in part, his untenable position of regarding Mark as the compiler of the two 
others, llo acknowledges, that even while using the narrative of the other two, he 
must have had in this case a separate and independent source. So far well ; but is it 
possible that this source absolutely contained nothing more than this one narrative ? 

Holtzmann, on the other hand, who regards the proto-Mark as the origin of the 
three Syn., finds it no less impossible to explain how Matthew and Luke could so 
completely alter the historical side of the account (the one : two blind men instead 
of ono; the other : the healing before entering Jericho rather than after, etc.), and 
to spoil at will its dramatic beauty, so well reproduced by Mark. "And what signifies 
the explanation given by Holtzmann of Luke's transposition of the miracle, and 
which is borrowed from Bleek : that Luke has been led by the succeeding history of 
Zaccheus to place the healing before the entrance into Jericho ! 

Volkmar, who derives Luke from Mark, and Matthew from the two combined, 
alleges that Mark intended the blind man to be the type of the Gentiles who seek the 
Saviour (hence the name Bartimeus ; Timeus comes, according to him, from Thima, 
the unclean) ; and the company who followed Him, and who wish to impose silence 
on the man, to be types of the Judco-Christians, who denied to the Gentiles access to 
the Messiah of Israel. Ii Luke omits the most picturesque details, it is because of 
his pTosaic character. If he omits the name Bartimeus, it is because he is offended 
at finding the Gentiles designated as impure beings. If he places the miracle before 
entering Jericho, it is because he distinguishes the healing of the man from that of 
his Paganism, which shall be placed after, and that in the salvation granted to 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUXE. 417 

Zaccheus.* Zaccheus, the pure, is the counterpart of Timeus, the unclean ("Die 
Evangel." pp. 502-505). Of its kind this is the climax ! Such is the game of hide 
and seek which the evangelists played with the Churches on the theme of the person 
of Jesus ! After this we need give no other proofs of this author's sagacity. 

8. Jesus at the House of Zaccheus : 19 : 1-10. — Vers. 1-10. f In Matthew and Mark 
the account of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem immediately follows that of the healing of 
Bartimeus. There is a blank left by them, for Jesus stayed at Bethany, and there 
passed at least one night (John 12 : 1, et seq.). This blank, according to Luke, is still 
more considerable. For before arriving at Bethany, Jesus stopped at Jericho, and 
there passed the night (ver. 5). Luke's source is original, and independent of the 
other two Syn. It was Aramaic, as is proved by the heaping up of Kal, the para- 
tactic form, as well as the expression ovojuan Kalov[xevoi 7 vers. 1, 2. Comp. 1 : 61. 
The name Zaccheus, from -Q1> t° be pure, proves the Jewish origin of the man. 
There must have been at Jericho one of the principal custom-houses, both on account 
of the exportation of the balm which grew in that oasis, and which was sold in all 
countries of the world, and on account of the considerable traffic which took place 
on this road, by which lay the route from Perea to Judea and Egypt. Zaccheus 
was at the head of the office. The person of Jesus attracted his peculiar interest, no 
doubt because he had heard tell of the benevolence shown by this prophet to people 
of his class. Most certainly n'S earl (ver. 3) does not signify : which of the members 
of the company He was (Bleek), but : what was His appearance. After having accom- 
panied the crowd for a little, without gaining his end, he outruns it. 

The sycamore is a tree with low horizontal branches, and consequently of easy 
ascent. 'E/ceu^s, for : 6i' etceivqs 66ov (ver. 19). Was the attention of Jesus called 
to his presence in the tree by the looks which the people directed toward him ? 
Did He, at the same time, hear His name pronounced in the crowd ? In this case, it 
is unnecessary to regard the address of Jesus as the effect of supernatural knowledge. 
There is something of pleasantness, and even of sprightliness, in the form : " Make 
haste and come down ; for to-day I must abide at thy house." The word must indi- 
cates that Jesus has recognized in him, on account of this eager desire which he has 
to see him, the host whom His Father has chosen for Him at Jericho. Here there is 
a lost sheep to be found. It is the same unwearied conviction of His mission as in 
meeting with the Samaritan woman. What absolute consecration to the divine work ! 
And what sovereign independence of human opinion ! In the multitude, which is 
yet swayed by pharisaic prejudices, there is general discontent. There is nothing to 
show that the disciples are also included under the words : " They all murmured." 
The expression craQels 6e, " but Zaccheus standing" (before the Lord, ver. 8), im- 
mediately connects the following words of the publican with those popular murmurs. 

* It might be thought that we are jesting. Here are the words : " The blind 
mendicant of Mark is cleft by Luke into two halves : (a) The blind man as such, 
whom he places before the entrance of Jericho ; (b) the Pagan element in the blind 
man, which is placed after leaving Jericho (in Zaccheus)." 

f Ver. 2. D. G, 7 Mnn. Syr. ItP leri( i« e , Vg. omit naAov/uevoS. &. L. Syr cur . omit 
ovtoS between km and tjv. B. K. n. some Mnn. It ali< *. Vg. omit rjv. Ver. 4. The 
mss. are divided between npodpafxuv (T. R. and Alex.) and npocrdpa/iov (Byz. and 25 
Mnn.). &. B. L. add etc to before efin-poaQev. Instead of M eKetvqS, which T. R. reads 
with A. and 2 Mnn. only, all the others, ekeivtjS. Ver. 5. &. B. L. omit the words 
etdev avrov mt. Ver. 8. G. K. M. II. several Mnn., icvpiov instead of Ijjoow, Ver. 9, 
N* L. R. omit eonv after Appaafx, 



418 , COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

Iradeii denotes a firm and dignified attitude, such as suits a man whose honor is 
attacked. " He whom Thou hast thought good to choose as Thy host, is not, as is 
alleged, a being unworthy of Thy choice." Did Zaccheus pronounce the words of 
ver. 8 at the time when Jesus had just come under his roof ? This is what we should 
be led to suppose at the first glance by the words • but he stood; nevertheless, this 
movement on the part of Zaccheus would appear a little hasty, and the answer of 
Jesus : Salvation is come (ver. 9), proves that He had already sojourned for a time 
with His host. "Was it, then, at the moment when Jesus was resuming His journey 
(Schleiermacher, Olshausen) ? Vers. 11 and 28 may support this supposition. But 
the word to-day (ver. 9), which recalls the to-day of ver. 5, places this dialogue on 
the very day of His arrival. The most suitable time appears to be that of the even- 
ing meal, while Jesus converses peacefully with His host and the numerous guests. 
Unless the terms of vers. 11 and 28 are immoderately pressed, they are not opposed 
to this view. 

Most modern interpreters take the words of Zaccheus as a vow inspired by his 
gratitude for the grace which he has just experienced. Tdou, behold, is taken to indi- 
cate a sudden resolution : " Take note of this resolution : From this moment I give 
. . . and I pledge myself to restore . J ." But if the pres, 1 give may cer- 
tainly apply to a gift which Zaccheus makes at the instant once for all, the pres. 1 
restore fourfold seems rather to designate a rule of conduct already admitted and long 
practised by him. It is unnatural to apply it to a measure which would relate only 
to some special cases of injustice to be repaired in the future, 'ldov, behold, is in 
keeping with the unexpected revelation, so far as the public are concerned, in this 
rule of Zaccheus, till then unknown by all, and which he now reveals, only to show 
the injustice of those murmurs with which the course of Jesus is met. " Thou hast 
not brought contempt on Thyself by accepting me as Thy host, publican though I 
am; and it is no ill-gotten gain with which I entertain Thee." In this sense, the 
otoBeiS 6e, but he stood, is fully intelligible. By the half of his goods, Zaccheus, of 
course, understands the half of his yearly income. In the case of a wrong done to a 
neighbor, the law exacted, when restitution was voluntary, a fifth over and above 
the sum taken away (Num. 5 : 6, 7). Zaccheus went vastly further. Perhaps the 
restitution which he imposed on himself was that forcibly exacted from the detected 
thief. In a profession like his, it was easy to commit involuntary injustices. Be- 
sides, Zaccheus had under his authority many employes for whom he could not 
answer. 

Jesus accepts this apology of Zaccheus, which indeed has its worth in reply to the 
murmurs of the crowd ; and without allowing the least meritorious value to those 
restitutions and those extraordinary almsgivings, He declares that Zaccheus is the 
object of divine grace as much as those can be who accuse him. His entrance into 
his house has brought salvation thither. Notwithstanding the words, "Jesus said 
unto him . . ." the words following are addressed not to Zaccheus, but to the 
entire assembty. The npoS air6v t unto him, therefore signifies : with His eyes turned 
upon him as the subject of His answer ; comp. 7 : 44. Jesus is the living salvation. 
Received as He was into the house, He brought into it by His very presence this 
heavenly blessing. KaQort, agreeably to the fact that (for so much as), indicates the 
reason why Jesus can assert that Zaccheus is saved this day. But is this reason the 
fact that Zaccheus is a descendant of Abraham according to the flesh, and has pre- 
served this characteristic as much as any other Jew, notwithstanding his Rabbinical 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 419 

excommunication ? No ; Jesus could not make the possibility of salvation dependent 
on the naked characteristic of being a member of the Israelitish nation, This idea 
would be in contradiction to His whole teaching, and to the very saying which con- 
cludes this verse. The term, son of Abraham, must therefore be taken in its spiritual 
sense : " Zaccheus is restored to this character which he had lost by his excommuni- 
cation. He possesses it in a still higher sense than that in which he had lost it." 
Ver. 10. Lost, so far as a son of Abraham according to the flesh ; but found (he, the 
same one, not avroc), as a son of Abraham according to the spirit. Thus the maxim 
of ver. 10 readily connects itself with ver. 9. 

According to Hilgenfeld (p. 206), this piece is not in the least Pauline ; it belongs 
to the ancient Ebionite source. According to Holtzmann, on the contrary (p. 234), it 
is entirely Luke's. It may be seen how critics agree with one another on questions 
of this sort ! As concerns ourselves, we have established an Aramaic source. On 
the other hand, we are at one with Holtzmann in acknowledging the traces of Luke's 
style (naQdri, ver. 9 ; rfkida, ver. 3 ; etceivijS, ver. 4 ; 6iayoyyv&iv, ver. 7). Hence we 
conclude that Luke himself translated into Greek this account, which is taken from 
an Aramaic document. 

9. The Parable of the Pounds : 19 : 11-27.— Ver. 11. The Introduction. — We have 
already observed in the multitudes (14 : 25, 18 : 38, 19 : 1-3), and even in the dis- 
ciples (18 : 31 ; comp. with Matt. 20 : 20, et seq.), the traces of an excited state. Ver. 
11 shows that it went on increasing as they approached Jerusalem. The profound 
calmness and self-possession of Jesus contrasts with the agitation which is produced 
around Him. The words ukovovtuv av7dv, " as they heard these things," and TrpooQels 
sine, " He added, and spake," establish a close relation between the parable of the 
pounds and the preceding conversation. But we need not conclude therefrom that 
this parable was uttered as a continuation of the conversation. It may, indeed, have 
been so merely in respect of time (ver. 28). The relation indicated by the introduc- 
tion is purely moral : the so striking contrast between the conduct of Jesus toward 
Zaccheus, and the generally received ideas, was such lhat every one felt that a deci- 
sive crisis was near. The new was on the eve of appearing ; and this imminent revo- 
lution naturally presented itself to the imagination of all in the form in which it had 
always been described to them. The word Ttapaxpri/xa, immediately, stands first in the 
proposition, because it expresses the thought against which the parable following is 
directed. ' The verb, avaQaiveoQat, to appear, answers well to the great spectacle for 
which they were looking. That Luke himself deduced this introduction from the 
contents of the parable, as Weizsacker supposes, is not impossible. But up to this 
point we have too often recognized the historical value of those short introductions, 
not to admit that Luke's source, from which he took the parable, contained some 
indication of the circumstances which had called it forth. 

Vers. 12-14* The Probation. — A man of noble birth goes to ask from the sovereign 
of the country which he inhabits the government of his province. Before undertak- 
ing this journey, which must be a long one — for the sovereign dwells in a distant 
country — this man, concerned about the future administration of the state after his 
return, puts to the proof the servants who have till now formed his own household, 
and whom he proposes afterward to make his officers. For that purpose he con- 
fides to each of them a sum of money, to be turned to account in his absence. Hereby 
he will be able to estimate their fidelity and capability, and to assign them in the new 

* Ver. 13. 8 Mjj. 20 Mnn. Or. read ev o instead of eus. 



420 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

state of things a place proportioned to the qualities of which they shall have given 
proof. Meanwhile the future subjects protest before the sovereign against the eleva- 
tion of their fellow-citizen. Some features in this picture seem borrowed from the 
political situation of the Holy Land. Josephus relates that on the death of Herod the 
Great, Archelaus, his son, whom he had appointed his heir, repaired to Rome to 
request that Augustus would invest him in his father's dominions, but that the Jews, 
wearied of this dynasty of - adventurers, begged the emperor rather to convert their 
country into a Roman province. This case might the more readily occur to the mind 
of Jesus, as at that very Jericho where He was speaking there slood the magnificent 
palace which this Archelaus had built. The word evyevf/S, of noble birth, evidently 
refers to the superhuman nature of Jesus. Maupdv is an adverb, as at 15 : 13. This 
far distance is the emblem of the long interval which, in the view of Jesus, was to 
separate His departure from His return. 

The expression, to receive a kingdom, includes the installation of Jesus in His 
heavenly power, as well as the preparation of His Messianic kingdom here below 
by the sending of the Holy Spirit and His work in the Church. A mina, among the 
Hebrews, was worth about £6 sterling.* It is not, as in Matt. 25 : 14, all his goods, 
which the master distributes ; the sum, too, is much less considerable ; the talents of 
which Matthew speaks are each worth about £400, The idea is therefore different. 
In Luke, the money intrusted is simply a means of testing. In Matthew, the matter 
in question is the administration of the owner's fortune. The sums intrusted, being 
in Luke the same for all the servants, represent not gifts (xapiofiaTa), which are very 
various, but the grace of salvation common to all believers (pardon and the Holy 
Spirit). The position of every believer in the future kingdom depends on the use 
which he makes of that grace Jiere below. It is surprising to hear Jesus call this 
salvation an eXdxtorov, a very little (ver. 17). What an idea of future glory is given to 
us by this saying ! The Alex, reading, h «, ver. 13, assumes .that epxopai has the 
meaning of travelling ; while with ius it would signify to arrive. The first reading 
implies that the time during which the absence of Jesus lasts is a constant returning, 
which is perfectly in keeping with the biblical view. " I say unto you, that from 
this time ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the throne . . . and coming in the 
clouds of heaven," Matt. 26 : 64. The ascension is the first step in His return here 
below. Ver. 14 describes the resistance of the Jews to the Messianic sovereignty of 
Jesus, and that during all the time which separates His first from His second coming. 

Vers. 15-19. f The Faithful Servants. — From ver. 15 onward Jesus depicts what 
will happen at the Parousia. Every servant will share in the power of his master, 
now become king, in a degree proportioned to his activity during the time of his pro- 
bation (the reign of grace). While the means of action had been the same, the 
results differ ; the amount of power committed to each will therefore also differ in 
the same proportion. It is entirely otherwise in Matthew. The sums committed 
were different ; the results are equal in so far as they are proportioned to the sums 
received ; there is therefore here equality of faithfulness and equal testimony of satis- 
faction. Everything in Matthew's representation turns on the personal relation of 
the servants to their master, whose fortune (ver. 14, his goods) they are commissioned 

* Keil, " Handb. der Bibl. Archaologie, " vol. ii. p. 144. 

f Ver. 15. .&. B. D. L. some Mnn. Or., dedoKec instead of edonev. &. B. D. L. 
g vr cur Q r ? Tl Sienpay/uaTevaavTO instead of rt$ ti dienpay/uaTevaaro. Ver. 17. B, D. 3 
Mnn, Or,, tvye instead of ev, 



/tf 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 421 

to administer and increase, and who rejoices equally in the active fidelity of all ; 
while in Luke the one point in question is to settle the position of the servants in the 
economy of glory which is opening, and consequently to determine the proportion of 
faithfulness displayed during the time of labor and probation which has just closed. 
The ten, the five cities (vers. 17 and 19), represent moral beings in a lower state of 
development, but whom the glorified faithful are commissioned to raise to their divine 
destination. 

Vers. 20-27.* Of the other seven servants there is no mention ; they fall either 
iato the category of the preceding, or into that of the following. The ground on 
which the latter explains his inactivity is not a mere pretext. His language is 
too plain-spoken not to be sincere. He is a believer who has not found the state of 
grace offered by Jesus so brilliant as he hoped — a legal Christian, who has not tasted 
grace, and knows nothing of the- gospel but its severe morality. It seems to him 
that the Lord gives very little to exact so much. With such a feeling, the least pos- 
sible only will be done. God should be satisfied with us if we abstain from doing ill, 
from squandering our talent. Such would have been the language of a Judas dis- 
satisfied with the poverty of Christ's spiritual kingdom. In Matthew, the unfaithful 
servant is offended not at the insufficiency of the master's gifts in general, but at the 
inferiority of those given to himself, in comparison with those of his associates. 
This is a Judas embittered at the sight of the higher position assigned to Peter or 
John. 

The master's answer (ver. 22) is an argumentum ad liominem : The more thou 
knowest that I am austere, the more shouldest thou have endeavored to satisfy me ! 
The Christian who lacks the sweet experience of grace ought to be the most anxious 
of laborers. The fear of doing ill is no reason for doing nothing, especially when 
there are means of action, the use of which covers our entire responsibility. What 
does Jesus mean by the banker ? Could it be those Christian associations to which 
every believer may intrust the resources which he cannot use himself '? It seems to 
us that Jesus by this image would rather represent the divine omnipotence of which 
we may avail ourselves by prayer, without thereby exposing the cause of Christ to any 
risk. Of him who has not worked the Lord will ask, Hast thou at least prayed 2 
The dispensation of glory changes in the case of such a servant into an eternity of 
loss and shame. The holy works which he might have wrought here below, along 
with the powers by which he might have accomplished them, are committed to the 
servant who has shown himself the most active. This or that Pagan population, for 
example, which might have been evangelized by the young Christian who remained 
on the earth the slave of selfish ease, shall be committed in the future dispensation to 
the devoted missionary who has used his powers here below in the service of Jesus. 
At ver. 26, the same form of address as at 12 : 41, 42. The Lord continues as if no 
observation had been interposed, replying all the while, nevertheless, to the objection 
which has been started. There is a law, in virtue of which every grace actively 
appropriated increases our receptivity for higher graces, while all grace rejected di- 
minishes our aptitude for receiving new graces. From this law of moral life it follows, 

* Ver. 20. & c . B. D. L. R 2 Mnn., o erepoS instead of erepos. Ver. 22. 9 Mjj. 
omit de after leyeL. Ver. 23. All the Mjj. except K. omit ttjv before rpane^av. Ver. 
26. &. B. L. 7 Mnn. omit yap after leyu. &. B. L. 7 Mnn. omit an' avrov after 
apdrjasrai. Ver. 27. The mss. are divided between enEtvovS (T. R., Byz.) and tovtovs 
(Alex.). &. B. P. L, R. some Mnn. Syr. add avrovs after KaTaofyaZare. 



422 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

that gradually all graces must be concentrated in faithful workers, and be withdrawn 
from negligent servants. Chap. 8 : 18, Jesus said, lhat which he seemeth to have ; 
here he says, That he hath. The two expressions are true. We have a grace which 
is bestowed on us ; but if we do not assimilate it actively, we do not really possess 
it ; we imagine we have it. 

Ver. 27 (comp. ver. 14) represents the Messiah's reckoning with the Jewish people, 
as vers. 15-26 represent His reckoning with the Church. Rtyv, only : " After judg- 
ing the servants, there remains only one thing. ' ' This punishment of the Jews in- 
cludes, along with the destruction of Jerusalem, the state of rejection in which they 
are plunged till the -Lord's return. 

The ruling idea of this parable in Luke is therefore that of a time of probation 
between the departure and the return of the Lord, necessary to prepare the sentence 
which shall fix the position of every one in the state of things following the Parousia. 
Hence follows the impossibility of that immediate appearing of the kingdom of God 
which filled the minds of the crowd now accompanying Jesus to Jerusalem. Luke's 
parable thus forms, as Holtzmann acknowledges, a complete whole ; and whatever 
the same learned critic may say, it must be confessed that the introduction, ver. 11, 
indicates its true bearing — a fact confirming the idea that this introduction belonged 
to Luke's sources, and proceeded from accurate tradition. 

The relation between this parable and that of the talents in Matthew is difficult to 
determine. Strauss has alleged that Luke's was a combination of that of the hus- 
bandmen (Luke 20) and that of the talents (Matt. 25). But the internal harmony of 
Luke's description, which Holtzmann acknowledges, does not admit of this suppo- 
sition. Meyer regards it as a rehandling of the parable of the talents in Matthew. 
The action is undoubtedly similar, but, as we have seen, the thought is radically differ- 
ent. The aim of Matthew's parable seems to be to encourage those who have re- 
ceived less, by promising them the same approbation from the Master if they are 
equally faithful, and by putting them on their guard against the temptation of mak- 
ing their inferiority a motive to spiritual indifference, and a pretext for idleness. We 
have seen that the idea of the parable in Luke is quite different. It must therefore 
be admitted that there were two parables uttered, but that their images were borrowed 
from very similar fields of life. The analogy between the two descriptions may 
perhaps have caused the importation of some details from the one into the other {e.g. , 
the dialogue between the master and the unfaithful servant). 

Here we have reached the end of that journey, the account of which begins 9 : 51. 
Jesus first traversed the countries lying south from the old scene of His activity, then 
the border regions of Samaria and Galilee, finally Perea ; He has thus come to the 
gates of Jerusalem. From the moral point of view, His work also has reached a new 
stage. On the one hand, the enthusiasm of the people is at its height, and all believ- 
ing Galilee, the nucleus of His future Church in Israel, accompanies Him to form 
His retinue when He shall make His kingly entry into His capital ; on the other, He 
has completely broken with the pharisaic party, and His separation from the nation 
as such, swayed by the pharisaic spirit, is consummated. He must die ; for to let 
Him live would, on the part of the Sanhedrim, be to abdicate. 

We have not followed step by step Keim's criticism on this last part of the jour- 
ney. It is the masterpiece of arbitrariness. Whatever does not square with the 
proportions of Jesus as settled beforehand by the learned critic, is eliminated for one 
reason or another. Those reasons are found without difficulty when sought. After 
John, Luke is the most abused. For Matthew's two blind men he substitutes one, 




COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. / 423 



because he thinks right to reproduce the other in the form of the person of Zaccheus. 
Timeus {the impure) becomes Zaccheus {the pure), the impure pure ! Mark replaces 
( the second by Timeus, the father (also blind) of Bartimeus ! Keim here reaches the 
height of Yolkmar. The blindness is overcome by the power of enthusiasm which 
was reigning at the moment, and which, by exalting the force of the vital nervous 
fluid, reopens the closed eyes temporarily or lastingly 1 Luke invents, in the de- 
spised person of Zaccheus, a counterpart to proud Jerusalem, which knows not the 
day of her visitation (19 : 42). It is true that this last expression of Jesus, as well as 
His tears over Jerusalem, with which it is connected, is invented, as much as the 
history of Zaccheus. The two counterparts are imaginary ! 



FIFTH PART. 



SOJOUEN AT JEKUSALEM. 



Chap. 19 : 28-21 : 38. 

This part includes three principal events : I. The entry of Jesus into Jerusalem 
(19 : 28-44). II. The exercise of His Messianic sovereignty in the temple 
(19 : 45-21 : 4). III. The prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Jewish 
people (21 : 5-38). The relation between these three events is easily understood. The 
first is the final appeal of Jesus to His people ; with the second there is connected the 
decisive rejection of Israel ; the third is, as it were, the pronouncing of the sentence 
which falls on this refusal. 



first cycle. — chap. 19 : 28-44. 
The Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. 

This narrative embraces : 1st The preparations for the entry (vers. 28-36) ; 2d. 
The joy of the disciples and of the multitude on coming in sight of Jerusalem (vers. 
38-40) ; 3d. The tears of Jesus at the same instant (vers. 41-44). 

1st. Vers. 28-36.* The Preparations for the Entry. — The connection indicated 
by the words, while thus speaking, He went, is rather moral than of time : " while 
speaking thus [of the unbelief of Israel], He nevertheless continued His journey (im- 
perf. EKopeveTo) to Jerusalem." "E/uTrpoadev signifies not in advance (els to npoodtv), but 
before [His disciples], at their head. Comp. Mark 10 : 32 : " They were in the way 
going up to Jerusalem ; ami Jesus went before them, and they were amazed, and as 
they followed they were afraid." 

According to John, while the great body of the caravan pursued its way to Jerusa- 
lem, Jesus stopped at Bethany, where a feast was prepared for Him, and where He 
passed one or even two nights ; and it was after this stay that He solemnly entered 
the capital, where the rumor of His approach had already spread. These circum- 
stances fully explain the scene of Palm Day, which in the synoptical account comes 

* Ver. 29. Marcion omitted all the piece, vers. 29-46. 1*. B. L. some Mnn. omit 
avrov after fiaBrjTuv. Ver. 30. &. B. D. L. 3 Mnn. Or., /qw instead of enruv. B. D. 
L. add nai before Xvcavre^. Ver. 01. 6 ]\Jjj. 3 Mnn. It alic i. Or. omit avru after epeire. 



/ 






COMMENTARY OK ST. LU.KE. 425 

upon us somewhat abruptly. Bleek finds a certain obscurity in Luke's expression : 
Y When He came nigh to Bethphage and Bethany ;" for it is not known how those 
two localities are related. In Mark (11 : 1) the same difficulty (Matt. 21 : 1 does not 
speak of Bethany). Add to this that the O. T nowhere speaks of a village called 
Bethphage, and that tradition;, which indicates the site of Bethany so certainly, says 
absolutely nothing about that of this hamlet. The Talmud alone mentions Bethphage, 
and in such a way as to show that this locality was very near Jerusalem, and was 
even joined to the city. Bethphage is without the walls, it is said ; and the bread 
which is prepared in it is sacred, like that which is made in the city (Bab. Pesachim, 
63. 2 ; Menachoth, 7. 6, etc.) Lightfoot, Renan, Caspari * have concluded from 
these passages that Bethphage was not a hamlet, but a district, the precinct of the city 
extending eastward as far as the Mount of Olives, and even to Bethany. According 
to the Rabbins, Jerusalem was to the people what the camp had formerly been to 
Israel in the wilderness. And as at the great feasts the city could not contain all the 
pilgrims who came from a distance, and who should strictly have found an abode in 
the camp (the city), and there celebrated the feast, there was added, they say, to Jeru- 
salem, to make it sufficient, all this district situated on the side of the Mount of 
Olives, and which bore the name of Bethphage {place of figs). Bethany was the be- 
ginning of this district where the pilgrims encamped in amass ; and perhaps its name 
came from Beth-Chani, place of booths (the merchants' tents set up in the sight of this 
multitude) (Caspari, p. 163). Nothing could in this case be more exact than the mode 
of expression used by Luke and Mark : when he came to Bethphage (the sacred dis- 
trict) and to Bethany (the hamlet where this district began). 'Elicu&v might be taken 
as the gen. plural of eXala, olive trees (elaitiv). But in Josephus this word is the name 
of the mountain itself (tXaiuv, olive wood) ; comp. also Acts 1 : 12. This is the most 
probable sense in our passage. At ver. 37 and 22 : 39, where Luke uses this word in 
the first sense, he indicates it by the art. tuv. 

The sending of the two disciples proves the deliberate intention of Jesus to give a 
certain solemnity to this scene. Till then He had withdrawn from popular expres- 
sions of homage ; but once at least He wished to show Himself as King Messiah to 
His people (ver. 40). It was a last call addressed by Him to the population of Jeru- 
salem (ver. 42). This course, besides, could no longer compromise His work. He 
knew that in any case death awaited Him in the capital John (12 : 14) says simply, 
Jesus found the young ass, without indicating in what way. But the words which 
follow, " The disciples remembered that they had done these things unto Him," ver. 
16 ; allude to a doing on the part of the disciples which John himseK has not men- 
tioned. His account, therefore, far from contradicting that of the Syn., assumes it 
as true. The remark, whereon yet never man sat (ver. 30), is in keeping with the # 
kingly and Messianic use which is about to be made of the animal. Comp. Deut 
21 : 3. Matthew not only mentions the colt, but also the ass. Accompanied by its 
mother, the animal, though not broken in, would go the more quietly What are we 
to think of the critics (Strauss, Volkmar) who allege that, according to Matthew's 
text, Jesus mounted the two animals at once ! The ease with which Jesus obtains 
the use of this beast, which does not belong to Him, is another trait of the royal great- 
ness which He thinks good to display on this occasion. OflrwS, ver. 31 (Mark and 
Matthew, eiQeol), " Thus ; and that will suffice." Luke and Mark do not cite the 

* " Chronol. geograph. Einleitung in dasLeben Jesu," 1869, pp. 161 and 162. 



426 COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 

prophecy of Zechariah. It was not necessary that every one should understand the 
symbolical meaning of this scene, and contrast the peaceful beast with the warlike 
steeds of earthly conquerors. A new proof of the supernatural knowledge of Jesus, 
which must not be confounded with omniscience ; comp. 22 : 10, 31-34 ; John 1 : 49, 
4 : 17, etc. According to Mark, who loves to describe details, the colt was tied to a 
door at a crossway (a/z0o&>s). It was no doubt the place where the little path leading 
to the house of the owners of the ass went off from the highway ; or might it be the 
crossing of two roads, that which Jesus followed (going from east to west), and that 
which to the present day passes along the crest of the mountain (from north to south) ? 
The term nvpios, Lord (ver. 34), shows the feeling of sovereignty with which Jesus 
acted. It is probable that He knew the owners. In substituting their garments for 
the cover which it would have been so easy to procure, the disciples wished to pay 
homage to Jesus — a fact brought out by the pron. kavruv (ver. 35). Comp. 2 Kings 
9 : 13. 

2d. Vers. 37-40.* The Entry. — From the moment that Jesus seats Himself on 
the colt, He becomes the visible centre of the assemblage, and the scene takes a char- 
acter more and more extraordinary. It is as if a breathing from above had all at once 
taken possession of this multitude. The sight of the city and temple which opens up 
at the moment contributes to this burst of joy and hope (ver. 37). The object of 
kyyi.£oi>Tos, coming nigh, is not npds ttj Karaftaaei (irpdc ttjv would be necessarjr) ; it is 
rather Jerusalem, the true goal of the journey. ILpbS ry is a qualification of rjp^avTo : 
" at the descent, they began." From this elevated point, 300 feet above the terrace 
of the temple, which is itself raised about 140 feet above the level of the valley of the 
Cedron, an extensive view was had of the city and the whole plain which it com- 
mands, especially of the temple, which rose opposite, immediately above the valley. 
All those hearts recall at this moment the miracles which have distinguished the 
career of this extraordinary man ; they are aware that at the point to which things 
have come His entry into Jerusalem cannot fail to issue in a decisive revolution, 
although they form an utterly false idea of that catastrophe. 

John informs us that among all those miracles there was one especially which ex- 
cited the enthusiasm of the crowd ; that was the resurrection of Lazarus. Already 
on the previous evening very many pilgrims had come from Jerusalem to Bethany to 
see not only Jesus, but also Lazarus v who had been raised from the dead. This day 
the procession meets at every step with new troops arriving from the city ; and these 
successive meetings call forth ever and again new bursts of joy. The acclamation, ver. 
38, is taken in part from Ps. 118 : 25. This hymn belonged to the great Hallel, which 
was chanted at the end of the Paschal Supper as well as at the feast of Tabernacles. 
• The people were accustomed to apply the expression, He who cometh in the name of the 
Lord (in the Psalm, every faithful one who came to the feast), to the Messiah. Prob- 
ably the word paotlevs, king, is authentic in Luke ; and its omission in some MSB. 
arises from the texts of the LXX. and of Matthew. The expression, in the name of, 
is dependent not on blessed be, but on He who cometh : " the King who comes on the 
part of God as His representative." The peace in heaven is that of the reconciliation 

* Ver. 37. The mss. are divided between qpZavro and rip&ro. B. D., iravrav in- 
stead of naouv. Ver. 38. Instead of o epxo/j.evog pacrtevS, which T. R. reads, &* IT. 
o /faatXeuS, D. A. some Mnn. lt a,i( i. o epxo/xevoS. Ver. 40. &. B. L. omit avroig. & B. 
L., npa%ovotv instead of Keicpatjovrat. 






/ 

COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 427 

which the Messiah comes to effect between God and the earth. Luke omits the word 
Hosanna, which his readers of Gentile origin would not have understood. 

The fact related vers. 39 and 40 belongs to Luke alone. Pharisees had mingled 
with the groups, to spy out what was passing. Aware that their authority is slipping 
from them (John 12 : 19), they had recourse to Jesus Himself., oeggmg Him to keep 
order in His crowd of followers. They are disgusted at seeing that, not content with 
setting Himself up as a prophet, He dares publicly to accept Messianic homage. The 
saying, Rebuke thy disciples, was doubtless accompanied with an irritated and anxious 
look toward the citadel of Antonia, the residence of the Roman garrison. This look 
seemed to say : " Seest thou not . . .? Are not the Romans there ? Wilt thou 
destroy us?'' The answer of Jesus has a terrible majesty : " If I should silence all 
those mouths, you would hear the same acclamations proceeding from the ground ! 
So impossible is it that an appearance like this should not be, once at least, saluted on 
the earth as it deserves to be !" The terms used appear to have been proverbial 
(Hab. 2 : 11). Some have referred the term, the stones, to the walls of the temple, 
and of the houses of Jerusalem, which, as they fell in ruins forty years after, ren- 
dered homage to the kingly glory of Jesus ; but this meaning is far-fetched. The 
form of the Paulo-post future (nenpatovTcu) is frequently used by the LXX., but, 
as here, without having the special signification which is attached to it in classical 
Greek. The grammatical reduplication simply expresses the repetition of the cry of 
those inanimate objects : " It will be impossible to reduce those stones to silence, if 
once they shall begin to cry." The simple future in the Alex, is a correction. 

Zd. Vers. 41-44.* The Lamentations of Jesus. — Jesus has reached the edge of the 
plateau (wc fjyyioev) ; the holy city lies before His view (iddv rfv -nokiv). What a day 
would it be for it, if the bandage fell from its eyes ! But what has just passed be- 
tween Him and the Pharisees present has awakened in Hh heart the conviction of the 
insurmountable resistance which He is about tOLieet. Then Jesus, seized, and, as it 
were, wrung by the contrast between what is and what might be, breaks out into 
sobs. *E/c/lavcT£v, not iddapvcev ; we have to do with lamentations, with sobbings, not 
with tears. The words even thou mark a contrast between the population of Jeru- 
salem and that multitude of believers from Galilee and abroad which formed His reti- 
nue. Wouid the inhabitants of Jerusalem but associate themselves with this Mes- 
sianic festival, their capital would be saved ! From that very day would date the 
glory of Jerusalem, as well as that of its King. The two words Kaiye and gov, omit- 
ted by the Alex., have great importance. " Kaiye, at least in this day, thy last day." 
This one day which remains to it would suffice to secure its pardon for all the un- 
belief of the city, and even for all the blood of the prophets formerly shed within Us 
walls ! Does not this word at least suppose previous residences of Jesus at Jerusalem ? 
Sou, added to yuepa (thy day), alludes to the days, now past, of Capernaum, Bethsai'da, 
and Chorazin. Jesus does not knock indefinitely at the door of a heart or of a 
people. In the words, the things which belong to thy peace, Jesus thinks at once of the 
individual salvation of the inhabitants and of the preservation of the entire city. By 
submitting to the sovereignty of Jesus, Israel would have been preserved from the 

* Ver. 41. The mss. are divided between erf avrij (T. R., Byz.) and en' avTijv 
(Alex.). Ver. 42. &. B. L. Or., ec eyvoc ev rrj rjfiepa ravrr] km gv instead of ei eyvcoS 
nai gv KaLye ev ttj rjuepa gov ravTq. &. B. L. omit gov after etpT}vr)v. Ver. 43. &. C. 
L. , irapenfialovoLv instead of "KepifidkovGiv. Ver. 44. The mss. are divided between em 
> iQu (T. R.) and eiu hidov. 



42S COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

spirit of carnal exaltation which led to its ruin. The apodosis of, Oh if . . . is 
understood, as at 13 : 9. By the vvv 6e, but now, Jesus reverts from this ideal salva- 
tion which He has been contemplating to the sad reality. We must beware of taking, 
with some commentators, as the subject of f/cpii/???, are hid, the whole of the follow- 
ing clause : " it is concealed from thine eyes that . . ." The sentence thus read 
would drag intolerably. 

Instead of the days of deliverance and glory, the image of which has just passed be- 
fore His mind, Jesus sees others approaching, which fill His soul with sadness (vers. 
43 and 44). Modern criticism agrees in asserting that this description of the destruction 
of Jerusalem in Luke includes particulars so precise, that it could only have been 
given ab eventu. It therefore concludes confidently from this passage that our Gospel 
was composed after this catastrophe. But in this case we must refuse to allow Jesus 
any supernatural knowledge, and relegate to the domain of myth or imposture all the 
facts of evangelical history in which it is implied, e.g., the announcement of Peter's 
denial, so well attested by the four Gospels. Besides, if it cannot be denied that the 
destruction of Jerusalem was foreseen and announced by Jesus, as is implied in His 
foreseeing the siege, is it not evident that all the particulars of the following descrip- 
tion must have presented themselves spontaneously to His mind ? We know well 
.how Jesus loves to individualize His idea by giving the most concrete details of its 
realization. Comp. chap. 17. Xapatj, a palisade of stakes filled in with branches and 
earth, and generally strengthened by a ditch, behind which the besiegers sheltered 
themselves. Such a rampart was really constructed by Titus. The Jews burned it 
in a sally ; it was replaced by a wall. In the LXX. idafifriv signifies, to dash on the 
ground. But in good Greek it signifies, to bring down to the level of the ground. The 
last sense suits better here, for it applies both to the houses levelled with the ground 
and to the slaughtered inhabitants. Jesus, like the Zechariah of the O. T. (Zech. 11) 
and the Zacharias of the New (Luke 1 : 68), represents His coming as the last visit of 
God to His people. The word naipoS, the favorable time, shows that this visit of God 
O is this day reaching its close. 

This account is one of the gems of our Gospel. After those arresting details, 
Luke does not even mention the entry into the city. The whole interest for bun lies 
in the events which precede. Mark (11 : 11) and Matthew (21 : 10) proceed other- 
wise. The latter sets himself to paint the emotion with which the whole city was 
seized. Mark (11 : 11) describes in a remarkable way the impressions of Jesus on 
the evening of the day. Accounts so different cannot be derived from the same 
written source. 

second cycle. — chap. 19 : 45-21 : 4. 
The Reign of Jesus in the Temple. 

From this moment Jesus establishes Himself as a sovereign in His Father's 
house. He there discharges the functions not only of a prophet, but of a legislator 
and judge ; for some days the theocratic authorities seem to abdicate their powers 
into His hands. These are the days of the Messiah's sovereignty in His temple (Mai. 
3 : 1, 2). 

This section contains the following facts : Jesus driving out the sellers 
(19 : 45^48) ; His answer to an official questiou of the Sanhedrim regarding His com- 
petence (20 ; 1-8) ; His announcing their deprivation of authority (20 ; 9-19) ; His 



/f 



y 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 429 

escape from the snares laid for Him by the Pharisees and Sadducees (20 : 20-26 and 
27-40) ; His putting to them a question respecting the person of the Messiah 
(20 : 41-44) ; His guarding the people against those seducers (20 : 45-47) ; His setting 
up, in opposition to their false system of moral appreciation, the true standard of 
divine judgment (21 : 1-4). 

1. Expulsion of the Sellers : 19 : 45-48. Vers. 45-48.* Without Mark's narrative 
we should think that the expulsion of the sellers took place on the day of the entry 
into Jerusalem. But from that evangelist, whose account is here peculiarly exact, we 
learn that the entry did not take place till toward the close of the day, and that on 
that evening the Lord did nothing but give Himself up to the contemplation of the 
temple. It was on the morrow, when He returned from Bethany, that He purified 
this place from the profanations which were publicly committed in it. If Matthew 
and Luke had had before them the account of the original Mark, how and why would 
they have altered it thus ? Holtzmann supposes that Matthew intended by this trans- 
position to connect the Hosanna of the children (related immediately afterward) with 
the Hosanna of the multitude. The futility of this reason is obvious. And why 
and how should Luke, who does not relate the Hosanna of the children, introduce 
the same change into the common document, and that without having known Mat- 
thew's narrative ! The entry of Jesus into Jerusalem took place either on Sunday 
(" Comment, sur l'evang. de Jean," t. ii. pp. 371-373) or on the Monday ; it would 
therefore be Monday or Tuesday morning when He drove out the sellers. Stalls 
(nT^jil) na d Deen se t U P m tne court of the Gentiles. There were sold the animals 
required as sacrifices ; there pilgrims, who came from all countries of the world, 
found the coins of the country which they needed. There is nothing to prove that 
this exchange had to do with the didrachma which was paid for the temple, f The 
words koX ayopdfyvraS, and them that bought, are perhaps borrowed from the other 
two Syn. But they may also have been omitted, in consequence of confounding the 
two endings vra$. The saying of Jesus is taken from Isa. 56 : 7 and Jer. 7 : 11. 
Luke does not, like Mark, quote the first passage to the end : " My house shall be 
called a house of prayer ttuol toZS iBveci,for all peoples.'" Those last words, how- 
ever, agreed perfectly with the spirit of his Gospel. He has not therefore borrowed 
this quotation from Mark. The appropriateness of this quotation from Isaiah is the 
more striking, because it was in the court of the Gentiles that those profanations 
were passing. Israel was depriving the Gentiles of the place which Jehovah had 
positively reserved for them in His house (1 Kings 8 : 41-43). By the designation, 
a den of thieves, Jesus alludes to the deceptions which were connected with those dif- 
ferent bargainings, and especially with the business of the exchangers. If Israel in 
a spirit of holiness had joined with Jesus in this procedure, the act would have ceased 
to have a simply typical value ; it would have become the real inauguration of the 
Messianic kingdom. 

Vers. 47 and 48 are of the nature of a summary ; the nab' q/uepav, daily, and the 
imperfects, they sought, etc., prove that Luke does not affect to give a complete 
account of these last days. The words, the chief of the people, are added as an appen- 
dix to the subject of the verb sought. They probably denote the chiefs of the syna- 

* Ver. 45. &. B. C. L. 13 Mnn. Or. omit ev avru after TrulowraS. ». B. L. 2 Mnn. 
Or. omit/cat ayopa^ovraS. Ver. 46. &. omits eon. B. L. R. 9 Mnn. Or. add kcu earni 
before o oikos, and reject eonv. 

\ As we had supposed in our " Comment, sur l'evang. de Jean," t. i. p. 376. 



430 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

gogue representing the people, who, with the priests and scribes, formed the Sanhe- 
drim. This singular construction arises from the fact that the real instigators of hos- 
tilities against Jesus were the priests and scribes ; the chief of the people only yielded 
to this pressure. This idea forms the transition from ver. 47 to ver. 48. The people 
formed the support of Jesus against the theocratic authorities. Certainly, if He had 
thought of establishing an earthly kingdom, now would have^ been the time. The 
passage Mark 11 : 18 is the parallel of those two verses. But neither of the two 
accounts can proceed from the other. 

Should this event be regarded as identical with the similar one which John places 
at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, 2 : 13, et seq. ? This seems to have been the gen- 
erally received opinion in Origen's time (in Joh. T. x. 15). As the Syn. relate none 
but this last residence at Jerusalem, it would be very natural for them to introduce 
here different events which properly belonged to previous residences. See, neverthe- 
less, in our " Comment, sur l'evang. de Jean," t. i. p. 391, the reasons which make 
it probable that the two events are different. Here we shall add two remarks : 1. 
Mark's narrative must rest on the detailed account of an eye-witness. Comp. those 
minute particulars : " And Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and into the temple ; and 
when He had looked round about upon all things, and now the eventide was come, He 
went out unto Bethany with the Twelve" (11 : 11) ; " And would not suffer that 
any man should carry any vessel through the temple" (ver. 16). These are such de- 
tails as are not invented ; it was not tradition that had preserved them (see Luke and 
Matthew). They proceed, therefore, from an eye-witness. How in this case can we 
question Mark's narrative, and consequently that of the three Syn. ? 2. If Jesus was 
returning for the first time after the lapse of two years (John 2) to the feast of Pass- 
over, which more than any other gave occasion to those scandals (Bleek on Matt. 
21 : 12), He could not but be roused anew against the abuses which He had checked 
the first time, more especially in the Messianic attitude which He had taken up. 
Here, then, again John supplies what the others have omitted, and omits what they 
have sufficiently narrated. 

2. The Question of the Sariliedrim : 20 : 1-8. — Vers. 1-8.* This account is sepa- 
rated from the preceding, in Mark and Matthew, by the brief mention of two events : 
in Mark 11 : 16, the prohibition of Jesus to carry vessels across the temple — the court 
was probably used as a thoroughfare (Bleek) ; in Matt. 21 : 14, et seq., the cures 
wrought in the temple, and the hosannas of the children. The authority which Jesus 
thus assumed in this sacred place was well suited to occasion the step taken by the 
Sanhedrim. If we follow Mark, it must have taken place on the day after the purifi- 
cation of the temple and the cursing of the barren fig-tree, and consequently on the 
Tuesday or Wednesday morning. Luke omits those events, which were unknown 
to him, as well as the cursing of the barren fig-tree, which related specially to Israel. 

Since the evening before, the members of the Sanhedrim had been in consultation 
{&t£lv of 19: 47 ) ; and their seeking had not been in vain. They had succeeded in 
inventing a series of questions fitted to entangle Jesus, or in the end to extract from 
Him an answer which would compromise Him either with the people or with the 
Jewish or Gentile authorities. The question of ver. 2 is the first result of those con- 

* Ver. 1. &. B. D. L. Q. several Mnn. Syr. It. Vg. omit skeivuv after nuepuv. 
The mss. are divided between apxiepeis (T. R, Alex.) and tepeiS (Byz.). Ver. 2. &* 
C. omit enre rjfiiv. & a B. L. R. 2 Mnn. read enrov instead of erne. Ver. 3. & B. L. 
II. 7 Mnn. omit sva before "koyov. Ver. 4. &. D. L. R. add to before luawov. Ver 
5. &. C. D. Syr cur . ItP leri ^ ne , Vg., cvveloyi^ovTo instead of ovveAoytaavTo. 13 Mjj. sev- 
eral Mnn. It ali< i. omit ow after diari. Ver. 6. &. B. D. L some Mnn., o 2.aos anas 
instead of 7raS o /Laos. 



COMMENTARY OH ST. LUKE. 431 

claves. Ver. 1 enumerates the three classes of members composing the Sanhedrim • 
it was therefore a formal deputation, comp. John 1 : 19, et seq. The elders are men- 
tioned here also (comp. 19 : 47) as secondary personages, beside the high priests and 
scribes. The first part of the question relates to the nature of Jesus' commission : 
is it divine or human ? The second, to the intermediate agent through whom He has 
received it. The Sanhedrim made sure that Jesus would claim a divine commission, 
and hoped to take advantage of this declaration to bring Jesus to its bar, and to sit in 
judgment on the question. On the one hand, Jesus avoids this snare ; on the other, 
He avoids declining the universally recognized competency of the Sanhedrim. He 
replies in such a way as to force His adversaries themselves to declare their incom- 
petence. The question which He lays before them is not a skilful manoeuvre ; it is 
dictated by the very nature of the situation. Was it not through the instrumentality 
of John the Baptist that Jesus had been divinely accredited to the people ? The ac- 
knowledgment, therefore, of Jesus' authority really depended on the acknowledgment 
of John's. The second alternative, of men, includes the two possible cases, of him- 
self, or of some other human authority. The embarrassment of His adversaries is 
expressed by the three Syn. in ways so different that it is impossible to derive the 
three forms from one and the same written source. This question has sufficed to 
disconcert them. They, the wise, the skilled, who affect to judge of everything in 
the theocracy — they shamefully decline a judgment in face of an event of such capital 
importance as was the appearing of John ! There is a blending of indignation and 
contempt in the neither do 1 of Jesus (ver. 8). But that answer which He refuses 
them, they who have refused Him theirs, He goes on to give immediately after in the 
following parable. Only it is to the whole people that He will address it (n-pds rbv laov, 
ver. 9), as a solemn protestation against the hypocritical conduct of their chiefs. 

Why did Luke omit the cursing of the barren rig-tree ? He was well aware, 
answers Volkmar, that it was simply an idea represented by Mark in the form of a 
fact ; and he restored to it it true character by presenting it, 13 : 6-9, in the form of a 
parable. So the description of God's -patience toward Israel, the barren fig-tree (13 : 6-9), 
is one and the same lesson with the cursing of that same fig-tree ! Why does 
Matthew make the cursing of the fig-tree and the conversation of Jesus with His dis- 
ciples on that occasion fall at the same period and on the same day— two facts which 
are separated in Markby a whole day ? Holtzmann answers : On reading (Mark 
11 : 12) the first half of this account, Matthew determined to leave it out. But on 
coming to the second half (Mark 5 : 20), he took the resolution to insert it ; only he 
combined them in one. So, when the evangelist was composing his narrative, he 
read for the first time the document containing the history which he was relating ! 
In view of such admirable discoveries, is there not reason to say : Bisum teneatis ? 

3. The Parable of the Husbandmen : 20 : 9-19. — This parable, in Matthew, is pre- 
ceded by that of the two sons. If, as the terms of the latter suppose, it applies to 
the conduct of the chiefs toward John the Baptist, it is admirably placed before that 
of the husbandmen, which depicts the conduct of those same chiefs toward Jesus. 

Vers. 9-12* We have just attested the accuracy of the introduction, and espe- 
cially that of the words to the people, ver. 9. Holtzmann judges otherwise : " A par- 

* Ver. 9. Marcion omitted vers. 9-18. 19 Mjj. the most of the Mnn. ItP le »«i™, 
Vg. omit Ti5 after avQponos, which T. R reads, with A. some Mnn. Syr. Ver. 10. 
£. B. D. L. some Mnn. It ali i. omit ev before Kaipo. The mss. are divided between 
tiooiv (T. R, Byz.) and Suaovoiv (Alex.). Ver. 12. A. &, n. some Mnn. ItP lori i» e , 
Vg. , Kaneivov instead of nai tovtov. 



432 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE, 

able inappropriately addressed to the people in Luke," says he. Is it possible to pro- 
nounce a falser judgment ? The vine denotes the theocratic people, and the husband- 
men the authorities who govern them. Luke speaks neither of the tower meant to 
receive the workmen's tools and to guard the domain, which perhaps represents the 
kingly office ; nor of the wine-press, the means of turning the domain to account, 
which is perhaps the image of the priesthood (comp. Matthew and Mark). The 
absence of the proprietor corresponds to that whole period of the O. T. which fol- 
lowed the great manifestations by which God founded the theocracy — the going out 
of Egypt, the giving of the law, and the settlement of Israel in Canaan. From that 
moment Israel should have offered to its God the fruits of a gratitude and fidelity pro- 
portioned to the favor which it had received from Him. The three servants succes- 
sively sent represent the successive groups of prophets, those divine messengers 
whose struggles and sufferings are described (Heb. 11) in such lively colors. There 
is a climax in the conduct of the husbandmen : ver. 10, the envoy is beaten ; ver. 11, 
beaten and shamefully abused ; ver. 12, wounded to death and cast out of the vine- 
yard. In this last touch, Jesus alludes to the fate of Zacharias (11 : 51), and probably 
also to that of John the Baptist. In Mark the climax is nearly the same : Zdeipav (to 
beat), knefyalaiuoav (here, to wound m the head), aireKTeivav (to kill). Mark speaks also 
of other messengers who underwent the same treatment ; it is perhaps this last 
description which should be applied to John the Baptist. Matthew speaks only of 
two sendings, but each embracing several individuals. Should we understand the 
two principal groups of prophets : Isaiah, with his surrounding of minor prophets, 
and Jeremiah with his ? The Hebraistic expression itpoaiBeTo itiiityai (vers. 11 and 12) 
shows that Luke is working on an Aramaic document. No similar expression occurs 
in Matthew and Mark. 

Vers. 13-16.* The master of the vineyard rouses himself in view of this obstinate 
and insolent rejection : What shall I do? And this deliberation leads him to a final 
measure : I will send my beloved son. This saying, put at that time by Jesus in the 
mouth of God, has a peculiar solemnity. There is His answer to the question : By 
what authority doest thou these things ? Here, as everywhere, the meaning of the title 
son transcends absolutely the notion of Messiah, or theocratic king, or any office 
whatever. The title expresses above all the notion of a personal relation to God as 
Father. The theocratic office flows from this relation. By this name, Jesus estab- 
lishes between the servants and Himself an immeasurable distance. This was implied 
already by the question, What shall 1 do . . . ? which suggests the divine dia- 
logue, Gen. 1 : 26, whereby the creation of inferior beings is separated from that of 
man. 'loos, properly, in a way agreeable to expectation ; and hence, undoubtedly (E. 
V. improperly, it may be). But does not God know beforehand the result of this last 
experiment ? True ; but this failure will not at all overturn His plan. Not only will 
the mission of this last messenger be successful with some, but the resistance of the 
people as a whole, by bringing on their destruction, will open up the world to the 
free preaching of salvation by those few. The ignorance of the future which is 
ascribed to the master of the vineyard belongs to the figure. The idea represented by 
this detail is simply the reality of human liberty. 

* Ver. 13. ». B. C. D. L. Q. some Mnn. Syr cur . ItP le »i ue , omit idovreS before 
evrpaTTTjcovTai. Ver. 14. A. K. II. 4 Mnn. ltP leri< i ue , dieAoyiaavro instead of dtehoyifrvTo. 
$. B. D. L. R. some Mnn., irpog allrjlovq instead of TrpoS eavrovS. 6 Mjj. 12 Mnn. 
j^pierique^ om jt Sevre before anoKTeivu/xev, 



COMMENTARY 0^ ST. LUKE. 433 

The deliberation of the husbandmen (ver. 14) is an allusion to that of the chiefs, 
ver. 5 (fiie/ oyi&vTo or — aavro ;' comp. with awe/.oyloavTo). Jesus unveils before all the 
people the plots of their chiefs, and the real cause of the hatred with which they 
follow Him. These men have made the theocracy their property (John 11 : 48 : our 
place our nation) ; and this power, which till now they have turned to their advantage, 
they cannot bring themselves to give up into the hands of the Son, who comes to 
claim it in His Father's name. At ver. 15 Jesus describes with the most striking 
calmness the crime which they are preparing to commit on His person, and from 
which He makes not the slightest effort to escape. Is the act of casting out of the 
vineyard, which precedes the murder, intended to represent the excommunication 
already pronounced on Jesus and His adherents (John 9 r 22) ? In Mark the murder 
precedes ; then the dead body is thrown out. The punishment announced in ver. 16 
might, according to Luke and Mark, apply only to the theocratic authorities, and not 
to the entire people. The alAa, the other husbandmen, would in this case designate 
the apostles and their successors. But the sense appears to be different according to 
Matthew, Here the word to others is thus explained, 21 : 43 : " The kingdom of God 
shall be given to a nation (eBvei) bringing forth the fruits thereof." According to this, 
the point in question is not the substitution of the chiefs of the N. T. for those of the 
Old, but that of Gentile peoples for the chosen people. What would our critics say 
if the parts were exchanged, if Luke had expressed himself here as Matthew does, 
and Matthew as Luke ? Matthew puts the answer of ver. 16 in the mouth of the 
adversaries of Jesus, which on their part could only mean, " He shall destroy them, 
that is evident ; but what have we to do with that ? Thy history is but an empty 
tale." Yet as it is said in ver. 19 that it was not till later that His adversaries under- 
stood the bearing of the parable, the narrative of Luke and Mark is more natural. 
The connection between dKovaavres and elnov is this : " they had no sooner heard 
than, deprecating the omen, they said ..." 

Vers. 17-19.* 'E/zpAefag, having beheld them, indicates the serious, even menacing 
expression which He then assumed. The <5e is adversative : " Such a tiling, you say 
will never happen ; but what meaning, then, do you give to this saying . . . ?" 
Whether in the context of Ps. 118 the stone rejected be the Jewish people as a whole, 
in comparison with the great world-powers, or (according to Bleek and others) the 
believing part of the people rejected by the unbelieving majority in both cases, the 
image of the stone despised by the builders applies indirectly to the Messiah, in whom 
alone Israel's mission to the world, and that of the believing part of the people to the 
whole, was realized. It is ever, at all stages of their history, the same law whose ap- 
plication is repeated. The ace. aIBov is a case of attraction arising from the relative 
pron. which follows. This form is textually taken from the LXX. (Ps. 118 : 22). 
The corner-stone is that which forms the junction between the two most conspicuous 
walls, that which is laid with peculiar solemnity. A truth so stern as the sentence of 
ver. 18 required to be wrapped up in a biblical quotation. The words of Jesus recall 
Isa. 8 : 14, 15, and Dan. 2 : 44. In Isaiah, the Messiah is represented as a consecrated 
stone, against which many of the children of Israel shall be broken. Simeon (2 : 34) 
makes reference to this saying. The subject in question is the Messiah in His humili- 
ation. A man's dashing himself against this stone laid on the earth means rejecting 
Him during the time of His humiliation. In the second part of the verse, where this 

* Ver, 19. C, P. 15 Mnn. Syr. ItP leri< w« f Vg., efyTovv instead of eCrjTiiaav. 



434 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

stone is represented as falling from the top of the building, the subject is the glorified 
Messiah crushing all earthly oppositions by the manifestations of His wrath. In 
Dan. 2 : 44 the word ItK/idv is also found TuKfiTJoet ndaac rag fiaoiAeiaS), strictly : to 
winnow, and hence to scatter to the wind. It is therefore dangerous to encounter this 
stone, either by dashing against it while it is yet laid on the ground, as Israel is doing, 
or whether, when it shall be raised to the top of the building, men provoke it to fall 
on their own head, as the other nations shall one day do. A new deliberation among 
the rulers follows this terrible shock (ver. 19). But fear of the people restrains them. 
There is a correspondence between the two nai before ktyofiriBrjoav and before etfnjoav. 
The two feelings, fearing and seeking (to put Him to death), struggle within their 
heart. The for at the end of the verse bears on the first proposition ; and the vrpds 
avTovg signifies, with a mew to them (ver. 9, 19 : 9). In Matthew there occurs here 
the parable of the great supper. It is hardly probable that Jesus heaped up at one 
time so many figures of the same kind. The association of ideas which led the 
evangelist to insert the parable here is sufficiently obvious. 

4. The Question of the Pharisees : 20:20-26. — The official question of the Sanhe- 
drim served only to prepare a triumph for Jesus. From this time forth the different 
parties make attempts on Him separately, and that by means of captious questions 
adroitly prepared. 

Vers. 20-26.* The introduction to this narrative presents in our three Syn. (Matt. 
22 : 15 ; Mark 12 : 13) some marked shades of meaning. The simplest form is that of 
Luke. The priests and scribes (ver. 19) suborn certain parties, who, affecting a scru- 
ple of conscience (" feigning themselves just men"), interrogate Jesus as to whether 
it is lawful to pay tribute to Gentile authorities. The snare was this : Did Jesus 
answer in the affirmative ? It was a means of destroying His influence with the 
people by stigmatizing His Messianic pretensions. Did He reply in the negative ? 
He fell as a rebel into the hands of the Roman governor, who would make short work 
with Him. This is brought out in ver. 20 by the emphatic accumulation of the terms 
&PXV, Hovoia, military power and judicial authority. Once given over to that power, 
Jesus would be in good hands, and the Sanhedrim would have no more concern about 
the favor with which the people surrounded Him. Aoyov and avrov ought both to be 
taken, notwithstanding Bleek's scruples, as immediately dependent on kiriXafSavTai : 
" To take Him by surprise, and to catch a word from Him by surprise." Accord- 
ing to Mark and Matthew, the Pharisees in this case united with the Herodians. Bleek 
thinks that the bond of union between the one party, fanatical zealots for national 
independence, and the other, devoted partisans of Herod's throne, was common an- 
tipathy to foreign domination. The presence of the Herodians was intended to en- 
courage Jesus to answer in the negative, and so to put Himself in conflict with Pilate. 
But the attitude of the Herodians toward the Roman power was totally different from 
Bleek's view of it. The Herods had rather planted themselves in Israel as the vas- 
sals of Caesar. The Herodians, says M. Reuss, " were the Jews who had taken the 

* Ver. 20. C. K. V. 25 Mnn., "koyov ; D., tuv loyuv ; L., 'loyovS instead of Aoyov. 
&. B. C. D. L., vote instead of etc to. Ver. 22. 5*. A. B. L. 6 Mnn., ij/tas instead of 
yfitv. Ver. 23. &. B. L. 6 Mnn. omitn^e netpaCere. Ver. 24 7 Mjj. 30 Mnn., Sett-are 
instead of eKtSei^are. &. C. L. 50 Mnn. add ot tie edei£av teat enrev after drjvaptov (taken 
from the parall.). &. B. L. Syr sch ., ot tie instead of aTcoKptOevreS 6e. Ver. 25. J*. B. L. 
7 Mnn., irpoS avrovS instead of avroiS. Ver. 26. &. B T L., rov prj/xaToZ instead of avrov 
07jaaT0<p r 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 435 

side of the family of Herod against the patriots," that is to say, against the Pharisees.* 
We have therefore here, what so often occurs in history, a coalition of two hostile 
parties, with the view of crushing a third, dangerous to both. In Galilee we have 
already seen a similar combination (Mark 3:6; Luke 13 : 31, 32). There was a per- 
fectly good reason for it in this case. If the answer of Jesus required to be de- 
nounced to the people, this task would fall to the Pharisees, who stood well with the 
multitude. If, ou the contrary, it was necessary to go to Pilate, the Herodiaus would 
take this part, so disagreeable to the Pharisees. According to Matthew (ver. 16), the 
heads of the pharisaic party took care to keep aloof. They attacked Him first through 
some of their disciples. In reality, their alliance with the Herodians compromised 
those well-known defenders of national independence. 

The address of the emissaries is variously rendered in our three Gospels. 'O/>0g3s : 
without deviating from the straight line. Asyeiv and 5i8cc6ueiv, to say and to teach, 
differ as pronouncing on a question and stating the grounds of the decision. The 
Hebraistic phrase XafifictvEiv itpoCcaitov , which must have been a frightful barba- 
rism to Greek ears {to take the countenance, for : to accept men's persons), is found only 
in Luke. It would therefore be himself, if he was copying Matthew or Mark, who 
had added it at his own hand — he who was writing for Greek readers ! '06Y>S Qeov, 
the way of God, denotes the straight theocratic, line traced out by the law, without re- 
gard to accomplished facts or political necessities. They think by their phrases to 
render it impossible for Him to recoil. There was, in reality — and this is what formed 
the apparently insurmountable difficulty of the question — a contradiction between the 
pure theocratic standard and the actual state of things. The normal condition was 
the autonomy of God's people — normal because founded on the divine law, and as 
such, sacred in the eyes of Jesus. The actual state of things was the subjection of 
the Jews to the Romans — a providential situation, and as such, not less evideutly 
willed by God. How was this contradiction to be got over ? Judas the Galilean, re- 
jecting the fact, had declared himself for the right ; he had perished. This was the 
fate to which the rulers wished to drive Jesus. And if He recoiled, if He accepted 
the fact, was this not to deny the right, the legal standard, Moses, God Himself ? 

Is it lawful for us (ver. 22)? They have a scruple of conscience! Jesus at once 
discerns the malicious plot which is at the bottom of the question ; He feels that 
never was a more dangerous snare laid for Him. But there is in the simplicity of the 
dove a skill which enables it to escape from the best laid string of the fowler. What 
made the difficulty of the question was the almost entire fusion of the two domains, 
the religious and political, in the Old Covenant. Jesus, therefore, has now to dis- 
tinguish those two spheres, which the course of Israelitish history has in fact sep- 
arated and even contrasted, so that He may not be drawn into applying to the one the 
absolute standard which belongs only to the other. Israel should depend only on 
God, assuredly, but that in the religious domain. In the political sphere, God may be 
pleased to put it for a time in a state of dependence on a human power, as had for- 
merly happened in their times of captivity, as is the case at present in relation to Caesar. 
Did not even the theocratic constitution itself distinguish between the tribute to be 
paid to the king and the dues to be paid to the priests and the temple ? This legal 
distinction became only more precise and emphatic when the sceptre fell into Gentile 
hands. What remained to be said was not God or Caesar, but rather, God and Caesar, 

* Herzog's " Encyclopedic," t xiii. p. 291. 



436 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

each in his own sphere. The Gentile money which passed current in Israel attested 
the providential fact of the establishment of the Roman dominion, and of the accept- 
ance of that state of things by the theocratic people. UMcunque numisma regis 
alicujus obtinet, illic incolce regem istum pro domino agnoscunt, says the famous Jewish 
doctor Maimonides (quoted by Bleek). The piece of Roman money which Jesus 
calls His adversaries to show, establishes by the image and inscription which it bears 
the existence of this foreign power in the political and lower sphere of the theocratic 
life ; it is to this sphere that the payment of tribute belongs ; the debt should there- 
fore be discharged. But above this sphere there is that of the religious life which 
has God for its object. This sphere is fully reserved by the answer of Jesus ; and 
He declares that all its obligations can be fulfilled, without in the least doing violence 
to the duties of the other. He accepts with submission the actual condition, while 
reserving fidelity to Him who can re-establish the normal condition as soon as it shall 
seem good to Him. Jesus Himself had never felt the least contradiction between 
those two orders of duties ; and it is simply from His own pure consciousness that 
He derives this admirable solution. The word ditodoTE, render, implies the notion 
of moral duty toward Caesar, quite as much as toward God. De Wette is therefore 
certainly mistaken here in limiting the notion of obligation to the things which are 
God's, and applying merely the notion of utility to the things which are Caesar's. 
St. Paul understood the thought of Jesus better, when he wrote to the Romans (13 : 1 
et seq.) " Be subject to the powers . . . not only from fear of punishment, but 
also for conscience' sake." Comp. 1 Tim. 2 : 1 et seq. ; 1 Pet. 2 : 13 et seq. Depend- 
ence on God does not exclude, but involves, not only many personal duties, but the 
various external and providential relations of dependence in which the Christian may 
find himself placed, even that of slavery (1 Cor. 7 : 22).* As to theocratic indepen- 
dence, Jesus knew well that the way to regain it was not to violate the duty of sub- 
mission to Caesar by a revolutionary shaking off of his yoke, but to return to the faith- 
ful fulfilment of all duties toward God. To render to God what is God's, was the 
way for the people of God to obtain anew David instead of Csesar as their Lord. 
Who could find a word to condemn in this solution ? To the Pharisees, the Render 
unto Ccesar ; to the Herodians, the Render unto God. Each carries away his own les- 
son ; Jesus alone issues triumphantly from the ordeal which was to have destroyed Him. 
5. The Question oftlie Sadducees : 20 : 27-40. — We know positively from Josephus 
that the Sadducees denied at once the resurrection of the body, the immortality of the 
soul, and all retribution after death (Antiq. xviii. 1. 4 ; Bell. Jud. ii. 8. 14). It whs 
not that they rejected either the O. T. in general, or any of its parts. How, in 
that case, could they have sat in the Sanhedrim, and filled the priesthood ? f Prob- 
ably they did not find personal immortality taught clearly enough in the books of 
Moses ; and as to the prophetic books, they ascribed to them only secondary 
authority 4 

* [According to the interpretation, "use servitude rather." See Lange's Com- 
ment, on the passage. — Trans.] 

f There is wide difference of view on this matter. Some of the Fathers and many 
moderns hold that the Sadducees denied all but the Pentateuch. Others, like our 
author, reject this view. May not both be right ? They did not openly impugn any 
of the Old Testament, but they tacitly ignored what they did not like. Are there no 
successors to them in this eclecticism ? — J. H. 

X Read on this subject the excellent treatise of M. Reuss, Herzog's " Encyclo- 
pedic" t. xiii. p.. 289 et seq. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 437 

Vers. 27-33.* The Question.— The Sadducees, starting from the Leviratelaw given 
by Moses (Deut. 25 : 5), agreeably to a patriarchal usage (Gen. 38) which is still 
allowed by many Eastern peoples, seek to cover with ridicule the idea of a resurrec- 
tion ; civriK.iyovrEi : wlw oppose (drri), maintaining that {Xeyovrei). The whole 
statement vers. 29-33 has in it a touch of sarcasm. 

Vers. 34-40. f The Answer. — This answer is preceded in Matthew and Mark by a 
severe rebuke, whereby Jesus makes His questioners aware of the gross spiritual igno- 
rance involved in such a question as theirs. The answer of Jesus has also a sarcastic 
character. Those accumulated verbs, yajueiv, ExyajuzC,£6Qai, especially with the 
frequentative yaju/dK£6Qai or £xyajuidH£66ai, throw a shade of contempt over that 
whole worldly train, above which the Sadducean . mind is incapable of rising. 
Although from a moral point of view the aioor fxiXKoov, the world to come, has already 
begun with the coming of Christ, from a physical point of view, the present world is 
prolonged till the resurrection of the body, which is to coincide with the restitution 
of all things. The resurrection from the dead is very evidently, in this place, not the 
resurrection of the dead in general. What is referred to is a special privilege granted 
only to the faithful {which shall be accounted worthy ; comp. 14 : 14 ; the resurrection 
of the just, and Phil. 3 : 11)4 

The first for, ver. 36, indicates a casual relation between the cessation of marriage, 
ver. 35, and that of death, ver. 36. The object of marriage is to preserve the human 
species, to which otherwise death would soon put an end ; and this constitution must 
last till the number of the elect whom God will gather in is completed. While the 
for makes the cessation of death to be the cause of the cessation of marriage, the 
particle ovre, neither, brings out the analogy which exists between those two facts. 
The reading oi)8e is less supported. Jesus does not say (ver. 36) that glorified men are 
angels — angels and men are of two different natures, the one cannot be transformed 
into the other — but that they are equal with the angels, and that in two respects : no 
death, and no marriage. Jesus therefore ascribes a body to the angels, exempt from 
the difference of sex. This positive teaching about the existence and nature of angels 
is purposely addressed by Jesus to the Sadducees, because, according to Acts 23 : 8, 
this party denied the existence of those beings. Jesus calls the raised ones children 
of God, and 4 explains the title by that of children of the resurrection. Men on the earth 
are sons of one another ; each of the raised ones is directly a child of God, because 
his body is an immediate work of divine omnipotence. It thus resembles that of the 
angels, whose body also proceeds directly from the power of the Creator — a fact which 
explains the name sons of God, by which they are designated in the O. T. The Mosaic 
command could not therefore form an objection to the doctrine of the resurrection 

* Ver. 27. &. B. C. D. L. some Mnn. Syr., leyovrei instead of avrikeyovTeq . Ver. 
28. & a B. L. P. some Mnn. Syr. lt ftli i. Vg., v instead of anc&avri. Ver. 30. &. B. D. 
L., teat o devrepoi instead of no : ehafiev o Sevt. t. yvv. icai ovroS aneO. areicvog. Ver. 31. 
12 Mjj. omit kcli before ov. Ver. 32. 5*. B. D. L. some Mnn. Syr. omit navruv. Ver. 
33. &. D. G. L. some Mnn. Syr. It. , eorat instead of yiverai. 

\ Ver. 34. J*. B. D. L. 2 Mnn. Syr. It. Vg. omit <nroKpideis (which is taken from 
the parallels). &. B. L. 8 Mnn., yafitaKovrat instead of EKyafii^ovrau Ver. 36. A. B. 
D. L. P., ovtie instead of ovre. Ver. 37. Marcion omitted vers. 37 and 38. 

X This view is not held by most commentators. The words do not require it, and 
the question of the Sadducees did not contemplate one class of the dead. They op- 
posed the idea of future life, retribution, and the raising of any from the dead. Why 
reply to them by a statement regarding one portion of the dead ? — J. H. 



438 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

rightly understood. Jesus now takes the offensive, and proves by that very Moses 
whom they had been opposing to Him (nai, even, before Moses), the indisputable truth 
of the doctrine (vers. 37 and 38). The scribes of the pharisaic party had probably 
often tried to discover such a proof ; but it was necessary to dig deeply in the mine to 
extract from it this diamond. 

In the phrase sin rfjg (Sdrov, eirl denotes the place where the account of the bush is 
found. The choice of the word pijvvu, to give to understand, shows that Jesus dis- 
tinguishes perfectly between an express declaration which does not exist, and an in- 
dication such as that which He proceeds to cite. He means simply, that if Moses 
had not had the idea of immortality, he would not have expressed himself as he does. 
"When Moses put into the mouth of God the designation, God of Abraham, etc., 
many generations had passed since the three patriarchs lived here below ; and yet 
God still calls Himself their God. God cannot be the God of a being who does not 
exist. Therefore, in Him they live. Mark the absence of the article before the 
words vsKpuv and &vtuv : a God of dead, of living beings. In Plato, it is their partici- 
pation in the idea which guarantees existence ; in the kingdom of God, it is their re- 
lation to God Himself. The dative avroj, to Him, implies a contrast to to us, to whom 
the dead are as though they were not. Their existence and activity are entirely con- 
centrated in their relation to God. All; not only the three patriarchs. The/*??' bears 
on the word living. " For they live,' really dead though they are to us. " 

This prompt and sublime answer filled with admiration the scribes who had so 
often sought this decisive word in Moses without finding it ; they cannot restrain 
themselves from testifying their joyful surprise. Aware from this time forth that 
every snare laid for Him will be the occasion for a glorious manifestation of His wis- 
dom, they give up this sort of attack (ver. 40). 

6. The Question of Jesus : 20 : 41-44.— Vers. 41-44.* Matthew and Mark place 
here the question of a scribe on the great commandment of the law. Tljis question 
was suggested to the man, as we see from Mark 12:28, by the admiration which 
filled him at the answers which he had just heard. According to Matthew, he wished 
yet again to put the wisdom of Jesus to the proof (neipdfev avrov, Matt. 22 : 35). 
Either Luke did not know this narrative, or he omitted it because he had related one 
entirely similar, 10 : 25 et seq. 

At the close of this spiritual tournament, Jesus in His turn throws down a chal- 
lenge to His adversaries. Was it to give them' difficulty for difficulty, entanglement 
for entanglement ? No ; the similar question which He had put to them, ver. 4, has 
proved to us that Jesus was acting in a wholly different spirit. What, then, was His 
intention ? He had just announced His death, and pointed out the authors of it (par- 
able of the husbandmen). Now He was not ignorant what the charge would be 
which they would use against Him. He would be condemned as a blasphemer, and 
that for having called Himself the Son of God (John 5 : 18, 10 : 33 ; Matt. 26 : 65). 
And as He was not ignorant that before such a tribunal it would be impossible for 
Him to plead His cause in peace, He demonstrates beforehand, in presence of the 
whole people, and by the Old Testament, the divinity of the Messiah, thus sweeping 
away from the Old Testament standpoint itself the accusation of blasphemy which 
was to form the pretext for His condemnation. The three Syn. have preserved, with 
slight differences, this remarkable saying, which, with Luke 10 : 21, 22, and some 

* Ver. 41. A. K. M. n. 20 Mnn. add uveS after leyovai. Ver. 42. &. B. L. R. 
some Mnn., avro: yap instead of nai avros. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 439 

other passages, forms the bond of union between the teaching of Jesus in those Gos- 
pels, and all that is affirmed of His person in that of John. If it is true that Jesus 
applied to Himself the title of David's Lord, with which this king addressed the Mes- 
siah in Ps. 110, the consciousness of His divinity is implied in this title as certainly as 
in any declaration whatever of the fourth Gospel. 

According to Luke, it is to the scribes, according to Matthew (22 : 41), to the 
Pharisees, that the following question is addressed. Mark names no one. The three 
narratives differ likewise slightly in the form of the question: "How say they?" 
(Luke) ; " How say the scribes ?" (Mark). In Matthew, Jesus declares to the Phari- 
sees at the same time the doctrine of the Davidic sonship of the Messiah — very nat- 
ural diversities if they arise from a tradition which had taken various forms, but 
inexplicable if they are intentional, as they must be, supposing the use of one and the 
same written source. The Alex, read: "For he himself . . ;" that is to say: 
" there is room to put this question ; for . . ." The Byz. : " And (nevertheless) 
he himself hath said . . ." Luke says : in the book of Psalms ; Matthew : by the 
Spirit ; Mark : by tlw Holy Spirit. The non -Messianic explanations of Ps. 110 are 
the masterpiece of rationalistic arbitrariness. They begin by giving to "ill'? 
the meaning : "addressed to David," instead of "composed by David," contrary 
to the uniform sense of the ~> auctoris in the titles of the Psalms, and that to make 
David the subject of the Psalm, which would be impossible if he were its author 
(Ewald). And as this interpretation turns out to be untenable, for David never was 
a priest (ver. 4 : " Thou art a priest for ever"), they transfer the composition of the 
Psalm to the age of the Maccabees, and suppose it addressed by some author or 
other to Jonathan, the brother of Judas Maccabeus, of the priestly race. This per- 
son, who never even bore the title of king, is the man whom an unknown flatterer is 
supposed, according to Hitzig, to celebrate as seated at Jehovah's right hand ! It is 
impossible to cast a glance at the contents of the Psalm without recognizing its di- 
rectly Messianic bearing : 1. A Lord of David ; 2. Raised to Jehovah's throne, that 
is to say, to participation in omnipotence ; 3. Setting out from Zion on the conquest 
of the world, overthrowing the kings of the earth (ver. 4), judging the nations (ver. 5), 
and that by means of an army of priests clothed in their sacerdotal garments-(ver. 3) ; 
4. Himself at once a priest and a king, like Melchisedec before Him. The law, by 
placing the kingly power in the tribe of Judah, and the priesthood in that of Levi, 
had raised an insurmountable barrier between those two offices. This separation 
David must often have felt with pain. Uzziah attempted to do away with it ; but he 
was immediately visited with punishment. It was reserved for the Messiah alone, at 
the close of the theocracy, to reproduce the sublime type of the King-Priest, pre- 
sented at the date of its origin in the person of Melchisedec. Comp. on the future 
Teunion of those two offices in the Messiah, the wonderful prophecy of Zech. 6 : 9-15. 
Ps. 110, besides its evidently prophetic bearing, possesses otherwise all the charac- 
teristics of David's compositions : a conciseness which is forcible and obscure ; brill- 
iancy and freshness in the images ; grandeur and richness of intuition. It was from 
the words : Sit thou at my right Imnd, that Jesus took His answer to the adjuration 
of the high priest in the judgment scene (Matt. 26 : 64) : " Henceforth shall ye see the 
Son of man sitting on the right hand of power." With what a look of severity, 
turned upon His adversaries at the very moment when He quoted this Psalm before 
all the people, must He have accompanied this declaration of Jehovah to the Messiah : 
" until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool. " 



440 COMMENTAKY ON" ST. LUKE. 

To answer satisfactorily the question of ver. 44, put by Jesus, it was absolutely 
necessary to introduce the idea of the divinity of the Messiah, which is the soul of 
the entire Old Testament. Isaiah called the Son born to us : Wonderful, mighty God 
(Isa. 9 : 5). Micah had distinguished His historic birth at Bethlehem, and His pre- 
historic birth from everlasting (5 : 2). Malachi had called the Messiah, " Ad»nai 
coming to His temple" (3 : 1). There was in the whole of the Old Testament, from 
the patriarchal theophanies down to the latest prophetic visions, a constant current 
toward the incarnation as the goal of all those revelations. The appearance of the 
Messiah presents itself more and more clearly to the view of the prophets as the per- 
fect theophany, the final coming of Jehovah. No doubt, since the exile, exclusive 
zeal for monotheism had diverted Jewish theology from this normal direction. This 
is the fact which Jesus sets before its representatives in that so profound argument of 
His, John 10 : 34-38. It was exactly in this way that Rabbinical monotheism had 
become petrified and transformed into a dead theism. Jesus has taken up the broken 
thread of the living theology of the prophets. Such is the explanation of His present 
question. To resolve it, the scribes would have required to plunge again into the 
fresh current of the ancient theocratic aspirations : The descendant promised to David 
(2 Sam. 7 : 16) will be nothing less than Adonai coming to His temple (Mai. 3 : 1) ; to 
His human birth at Bethlehem there corresponds His eternal origin in God (Mic. 5:2): 
such only is the reconciliation of the two titles son and Lord of David given to the 
person of the Messiah. 

The meaning and appropriateness of Jesus' question appear to us equally man- 
ifest. It has been sought, however, to explain it otherwise. 

1. Some think that Jesus argues, from the fact that Messiah is to be David's 
Lord, to prove that He cannot be his descendant. For it is incongruous, say they, 
that an ancestor should call his descendant his Lord. According to this meaning it 
must be admitted that Jesus Himself knew very well that He did not descend from 
David, although among the people they ignorantly gave Him the title son of David, 
because they took Him for the Messiah. The Christians, it is said, yielded at a later 
period to the popular Jewish instinct ; and to satisfy it invented the two genealogies 
which seem to establish the Davidic descent of Jesus (Schenkel). But, (a) In this 
case, Jesus would have acted, as Keim observes, in a manner extremely imprudent, 
by Himself raising a question which more than any other might have prejudiced His 
standing with the people. "The character son of David could not be wanting to Him 
who thus publicly made it a subject of discussion" \Keim). (5) It would not only 
be the forgers, the authors of the two genealogical documents preserved by Matthew 
and Luke, who had admitted and propagated this late error ; it would also mean the 
author of the Apocalypse (22 : 16 : " I am the root and offspring of David"). St. 
Paul himself would be guilty — he who should least of all have been inclined to make 
such a concession to the Judaizing party (Rom. 1:3: "of the seed of David accord- 
ing to the flesh ;" 2 Tim. 2:8: " of the seed of David.") The whole Church must 
1 thus have connived at this falsehood, or given in to this error, and that despite of the 
express protestation of Jesus Himself in our passage, and without any attempt on 
the part of our Lord's adversaries to show up the error or falsehood of this assertion ! 
(c) The argument thus understood would prove far too much ; the rationalists them- 
selves should beware of ascribing to Jesus so gross a want of logic as it would imply. 
If it was dishonoring to David to call any one whatsoever of his descendants his 
Lord, why would it be less so for him to give this title to that descendant of Abra- 
ham who should be the Messiah ? Was not the family of David the noblest, the most 
illustrious of Israelitish families ? The reasoning of Jesus would logically end in 
proving that the Messiah could not be an Israelite, or even a man f (d) Jesus would 
thus have put Himself in contradiction to the whole Old Testament which represent- 
ed the Christ as being born of the family of David (2 Sam. 7 ; Ps. 132 : 17 ; Isa. 
9 :5, 6). (e) Luke would also be in contradiction with himself, for he expressly makes 



COMMENTARY Ols ST. LUKE. 441 

Jesus descend from David (1 : 32, 69). (/) How, finally, could Jesus have contented 
Himself with protesting so indirectly against this attribute son of David ascribed to 
Him by the multitude, if He had known that He did not possess it ? 

2. According to M. Colani also, Jesus means that the Messiah is not the son of 
David, but in this purely moral sense, that He is not the heir of his temporal power ; 
that His kingdom is of a higher nature than David's earthly kingdom. But, (a) It is 
wholly opposed to the simple and rational meaning of the term son of David, not to 
refer it to sonship properly so called, but to make it signify a temporal king like 
David, (b) It would be necessary to admit that the evangelist did not himself under- 
stand the meaning of this saying, or that he contradicts himself — he who puts into 
the mouth of the angel the declaration, 1 : 32 : " The Lord shall give unto Him the 
throne of His father David" (comp. ver. 69\ 

3. Keim admits the natural meaning of the term Son. He places the notion of 
spiritual kingship not in this term, but in that of David's Lord. " The physical 
descent of Jesus from David is of no moment ; His kingdom is not a repetition of 
David's. From the bosom of the heavenly glory to which He is raised, He bestows 
spiritual blessings on men. None, therefore, should take offence at His present 
poverty." But, (a) If that is the whole problem, the problem vanishes ; for there is 
not the least difficulty in admitting that a descendant may be raised to a height sur- 
passing that of his ancestor. There is no serious difficulty, if the term Lord does not 
include the notion of a sonship superior to that which is implied in the title son of 
David, (b) So thoroughly is this our Lord's view, that in Mark the question put by 
Him stands thus: "David calls Him his Lord; how, then, is He his sonV In 
Keim's sense, Jesus should have said : " David calls Him his son ; how, then, is He 
his Lord?" In the form of Matthew (the Gospel to which Keim uniformly gives the 
preference, and to which alone he ascribes any real value), the true point of the ques- 
tion is still more clearly put : " Whose son is He ?" The problem is evidently, there- 
fore, the Davidic sonship of Jesus, as an undeniable fact, and yet apparently contra- 
dictory to another sonship implied in the term David's Lord. Finally, (c) If it was 
merely the spiritual nature of His kingdom which Jesus meant to teach, as Colani 
and Keim allege in their two different interpretations, there were many simpler and 
clearer ways of doing so, than the ambiguous and complicated method which on 
their supposition He must have employed here. The question put by Jesus would 
be nothing but a play of wit, unworthy of Himself and of the solemnity of the occa- 
sion. 

4. According to Volkmar, this whole piece is a pure invention of Mark, the prim- 
itive evangelist, who, by putting this question in the mouth of Jesus, skilfully 
answered this Rabbinical objection : Jesus did not present Himself to the world 
either as David's descendant or as His glorious successor ; consequently He cannot 
be the Messiah, for the O. T. makes Messiah the son of David. Mark answered by 
the mouth of Jesus : No ; it is impossible that the O. T. could have meant to make 
Messiah the son of David, for according to Ps. 110 the Messiah was to be his Lord. 
But, (a) It would follow therefrom, as Volkmar acknowledges, that in the time of 
Jesus none had regarded Him as the descendant of David. Now the acclamations of 
the multitude on the day of Palms, the address of the woman of Canaan, that of 
Bartimeus, and all the other like passages, prove on the contrary, that the Davidic 
sonship of Jesus was a generally admitted fact, (b) How was it that the sciibes • 
never protested against the Messianic pretensions of Jesus, especially on the occasion 
of His trial before the Sanhedrim, if His attitude son of David had not been a notori- 
ous fact? (c) The Davidic descent of the family of Jesus was so well known that 
the Emperor Dumitian summoned the nephews of Jesus, the sons of Jude His 
brother, to Rome, under the designation of sons of David, (d) St. Paul, in the year 
59, positively teaches the Davidic descent of Jesus (Rom. 1 : 3). And Mark, the 
Pauline (according to Volkmar), denied to Jesus this same sonship in 73 (the date, 
according to Volkmar, of Mark's composition), by a reasoning adlwc! Still more, 
Luke himself, that Pauline of the purest water, reproduces Mark's express denial, 
without troubling himself about the positive teaching of Paul ! Volkmar attempts 
to elude the force ^f this argument by maintaining that Paul's saying in the Epistle 
to the Romans is only a concession made by him to the Judeo-Christiau party ! To 
the objection taken from the genealogy of Jesus (Luke 3 : 23, et seq.), Volkmar auda- 



442 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

ciously replies that Luke mentions it only to set it aside (" um sie zu illudiren"). And 
yet this same Luke, as we have seen, expressly asserts this sonship (1 : 32 and 69). 
(e) Let us add a last discovery of Volktnar's : Matthew found it useful, in the interest 
of the Judeo- Christian party, to accept in spite of Mark the idea of the Davidic 
descent of Jesus as he found it contained in Luke (in that genealogical document 
which Luke had quoted only to set aside) ! Only, to glorify Jesus the more, he 
substituted at his own hand, for the obscure branch of Nathan (Luke's genealogy), 
the royal and much more glorious line of Solomon (Matthew's). 

Thus our sacred writers manipulate history to suit their interest or caprice ! 
Instead of the artless simplicity which moves us in their writings, we find in them 
device opposed to device and falsehood to falsehood ! Be it ours to stand aloof 
from such saturnalia of criticism ! 

Our interpretation, the only natural one in the context, is confirmed : (1) By those 
expressions in the Apocalypse : the root and offspring of David — expressions which 
correspond to those of Lord and son of this king ; (2) by Paul's twofold declaration, 
" made of the seed of David according to the flesh [David's son], and declared to be 
the Son of God with power since His resurrection, according to the spirit of holiness 
[David's Lord] ;" (3) by the silence of Jesus at the time of His condemnation. This 
question, put in the presence of all the people to the conscience of His judges, had 
answered beforehand the accusation of blasphemy raised against Him. Such was 
the practical end which Jesus had in view, when with this question He closed this 
decisive passage of arms. 

7. The Warning against the Scribes: 20 : 45-47. — Vers. 45-47.* On the field of 
battle where the scribes have just been beaten, Jesus judges them. This short dis- 
course, like its parallel Mark 12 : 38-40, is the summary of the great discourse Matt. 
23, wherein Jesus pronounced His woe on the scribes and Pharisees, and which may 
be called the judgment of the theocratic authorities. It is the prelude to the great 
eschatological discourse which follows (the judgment of Jerusalem, of the Church, 
and of the world, Matt. 24 and 25). In the discourse Matt. 23, two different dis- 
courses are combined, of which the one is transmitted to us by Luke (11 : 37 et seq.), 
in a context which leaves nothing to be desired, and the other was really uttered at 
the time where we find it placed in the first Gospel. We have only an abridgment 
in Mark and Luke, either because it was found in this form in the documents from 
which they drew, or because, writing for Gentile readers, they deemed it unnecessary 
to transmit it to them in whole. QeMvtuv : who take their pleasure in. There are 
two ways of explaining the spoliations referred to in the words : devouring widows' 
houses. Either they extorted considerable presents from pious women, under pretext 
of interceding for them — this sense would best agree with the sequel, especially with 
the reading npoaevxdfievoi ; or what is more natural and piquant, by the ambiguity of 
the word eat up, Jesus alludes to the sumptuous feasts provided for them by those 
women, while they filled the office of directors of the conscience ; in both senses : 
the Tartufifes of the period. The word -rrpofyaotS, strictly pretext, signifies secondarily, 
show. The words greater damnation, include in an abridged form all the ovai, woes! 
of Matthew. 

8. The Widow's Alms : 21 : 1-4. — Vers. 1-4. f This piece is wanting in Matthew. 
Why would he have rejected it, if, according to Holtzmann's view, he had before 
him the document from which the other two have taken it ? According toJMark 

* Ver. 45. B. D. omit avrov after paBrjTat^. Ver. 47. D. P. R. some Mnn. Syr. 
ltP lerl <i«« t Vg., Kpooevxofj-evoi instead of Trpoaevxovrat. , 

j- Ver. 2. 9 Mjj. several Mnn., nva mi instead of nai nva. 9 Mjj. several Man. 
omit nai. Ver. 4, & f B, L. X. 4 Mnn. Syr cur . omit tov Qeov after dupa, 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. . 443 

(12 : 41-44), Jesus, probably worn out with the preceding scene, sat down. In the 
court of the women there were placed, according to the Talmud (tr. Schekalim, vi. 
1, 5, 13), thirteen coffers with horn-shaped orifices ; whence their name nilClttN 
They were called yafrQvMtita, treasuries. This name in the sing, designated the 
locality as a whole where those coffers stood (John 8 : 20) ; Josephus, Antiq. xix. 6. 1). 
This is perhaps the meaning in which the word is used in Mark (5 : 41) : over 
against tlie treasury ; in Luke it is applied to the coffers themselves, \eirrdv, mite: 
the smallest coin, probably the eighth part of the as, which was worth from six to 
eight centimes (from a halfpenny to three farthings). Two henra, therefore, corre- 
spond nearly to two centime pieces. Bengel finely remarks on the two : "one of 
which she might have retained." Mark translates this expression into Roman 
money : " which make a farthing" — a slight detail unknown to Luke, and fitted to 
throw light on the question where the second Gospel was composed. In the sayings 
which Jesus addresses to His disciples, His object is to lead their minds to the true 
appreciation of human actions according to their quality, in opposition to the quan- 
titative appreciation which forms the essence of pharisaism. Such is the meaning of 
the word : site hath cast in more ; in reality, with those two mites she had cast in her 
heart. The proof (yap, ver. 4) is given in what follows : she hath cast in of her penury 
all that she had. "Torepij/ia, deficiency, denotes what the woman had as insufficient for 
her maintenance. " And of that too little, of that possession which in itself is already 
a deficiency, she has kept nothing." The word vortpvois in Mark denotes not what 
the woman had as insufficient (vGreprjua), but her entire condition, as a state of con- 
tinued penury. What a contrast to the avarice for which the scribes and Pharisees 
are upbraided in the preceding piece ! This incident, witnessed by Jesus at such a 
time, resembles a flower which He comes upon all at once in the desert of official 
devotion, the sight and perfume of which make Him leap with joy. Such an 
example is the justification of the beatitudes, Luke 6, as the preceding discourse 
justifies the oval, woes, in the same passage. 

THIRD CYCLE.— CHAP. 21:5-38. 

The Prophecy of the Destruction of Jerusalem. 
» 
This piece contains a question put by the disciples (vers. 5-7), the discourse of 

Jesus in answer to their question (vers. 8-36), and a general view of the last days 
(vers. 37, 38). 

1. The Question: vers. 5-7.*— To the preceding declaration, some of the hearers 
might have objected, that if only such gifts as the widow's had been made in that 
holy place, those magnificent structures and those rich offerings would not have 
existed. It was doubtless some such reflection which gave rise to the following con- 
versation. This conversation took place, according to Matthew 24 : 1 and Mark 
13 : 1, as Jesus left the temple, and on occasion of an observation made by His dis- 
ciples (Matthew), or by one of them (Mark). According to Matthew, this observation 
was certainly connected with the last words of the previous discourse (not related by 
Mark and Luke), 23 : 38 : " Your house is left unto you [desolate]." How can it be 

* Yer. 5. K. A. D. X., avaOe/iaotv instead of avaBrifjaatv. Ver. 6. D. L. Itpienqu e> 
omit a after ravra. &. B. L. some Mnn. add ode after lido or XiQov. 



444 . COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

asserted that three evangelists, copying the same document, or copying from one 
another, could differ in such a way ? 

In the answer of Jesus (ver. 6), the words, ravra d OeupelTe, these things which ye lie- 
hold, may be taken interrogatively : ' ' These are the things, are they, which ye are 
beholding?" Or we may take them as in apposition to /iQos, and the subject of 
(KpedrjaeraL, which is more categorical and solemn : " As to these things which ye be- 
hold . . . there shall not be left one stone upon another. " It was evening (Luke 
5 : 37), at the moment perhaps when the setting sun was casting his last rays on the 
sacred edifice and the holy city. Several critics think that Luke places this discourse 
also in the temple. But this opinion does not agree either with vers. 5 and 6, where 
the temple buildings are contemplated by the interlocutors, which supposes them to 
be at some distance from which they can view them as a whole, or with ver. 7, which 
conveys the notion of a private conversation between the disciples and the Master. 
According to Mark (13 : 3), Jesus was seated with Peter, James, John, and Andrew, 
on the Mount of Olives, over against that wonderful scene. Here is one of those de- 
tails in which we recognize the recital of an eye-witness, probably Peter. Matthew, 
while indicating the situation in a way similar to Mark, does not, any more than 
Luke, name the four disciples present. Luke and Matthew would certainly not have 
omitted such a circumstance, if they had copied Mark ; as, oq the contrary, Mark 
would not have added it at his own hand, if he had compiled from the text of the 
other two. 

The form of the disciples' question, ver. 7, differs in Luke and Mark, but the sense 
is the same : the question in both refers simply to the time of the destruction of the 
temple, and to the sign by which it shall be announced. It is, no doubt, possible the 
disciples more or less confounded this catastrophe with the event of the Parousia ; but 
the text does not say so. It is quite otherwise in Matthew ; according to him, the 
question bears expressly on those two points combined : the time of the destruction 
of the temple, and the sign of the coming of Christ. Luke and Matthew each give 
the following discourse in a manner which is in keeping with their mode of express- 
ing the question which gives rise to it. In Luke, this discourse contemplates exclu- 
sively the destruction of Jerusalem. If mention is made of the end of the world (vers. 
25-27), it is only in passing, and as the result of an association of ideas which will be 
easily explained. The Parousia in itself .had been previously treated of by Luke in 
a special discourse called forth by a question of the Pharisees (chap. 17). On his 
side, Matthew combines in the following discourse the two subjects indicated in the 
question, as he has expressed it ; and he unites them in so intimate a way, that all 
attempts to separate them in the text, from Chrysostom to Ebrard and Meyer, have 
broken down. Comp. vers. 14 and 22, which can refer to nothing but the Parousia, 
while the succeeding and preceding context refer to the destruction of Jerusalem ; 
and on the other hand, ver. 34, which points to this latter event, while all that pre- 
cedes and follows this verse applies to the Parousia. The construction attempted by 
Gess is this : 1. From vers. 4-14, the general signs preceding the Parousia, that be- 
lievers may not be led to expect this event too soon ; 2. From vers. 15-28, the de- 
struction of the temple as a sign to be joined to those precursive signs ; 3. Vers. 
29-31, the Parousia itself. But {a) this general order is far from natural. What has 
the destruction of the temple to do after the passage vers. 4-14, which (Gess acknowl- 
edges) supposes it consummated long ago ? The piece (No. 2) on the destruction of 
Jerusalem is evidently out of place between the description of the signs of the 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 445 

Parousia (No. 1) and that of the Parousia itself (No. 3). (b) This division cannot be 
carried out into detail : ver. 22, which Gess is obliged to refer to the destruction of 
Jerusalem, can apply only to the Parousia. And the " all these things" of ver. 34, 
which he restricts to the destruction of Jerusalem and the first preaching of the gos- 
pel to the Gentiles, as first signs of the Parousia, has evidently a much wider scope 
in the evangelist's view. It must therefore be admitted, either that Jesus Himself 
confounded the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world, and that those two 
events formed, in His judgment, one and the same catastrophe, or that two distinct 
discourses uttered by Him on two different occasions appear in Matthew united in 
one. Different expedients have been used to save the accuracy of Matthew's account, 
without prejudice to the Saviour's infallibility. It has been supposed that the de- 
scription of the Parousia, Matt. 24, refers exclusively to the invisible return of Jesus 
to destroy Jerusalem. This explanation is incompatible with the text, especially vers. 
29-31. It has also been alleged that in the prophetic perspective the final coming of 
the Messiah appeared to the view of Jesus as in immediate connection with His re- 
turn to judge Israel. But (a) this hypothesis does not at all attain the end which its 
authors propose, that of saving our Lord's infallibility. (b) Jesus could not affirm 
here what He elsewhere declares that He does not know (Mark 13 : 32), the time of 
the Parousia. Even after His resurrection He still refuses to give an answer on this 
point, which is reserved by the Father in His own power (Acts 1 : 6, 7). (c) We can 
go further, and show that Jesus had a quite opposite view to that of the nearness of 
His return. While He announces the destruction of Jerusalem as an event to be wit- 
nessed by the contemporary generation, He speaks of the Parousia as one which is 
possibly yet very remote. Consider the expression, zktvaovTai rjfiepai, days will come 
(Luke 17 : 22), and the parable of the widow, the meaning of which is, that God will 
seem to the Church an unjust judge, who for a protracted time refuses to hear her, 
so that during this time of waiting the faith of many shall give way (18 : 1 et seg.). 
The Master is to return ; but perhaps it will not be till the second, or the third 
watch, or even till the morning, that He will come (Mark 13 : 35 ; Luke 12 : 38). 
The great distance at which the capital lies (Luke 19 : 12) can signify nothing else 
than the considerable space of time which will elapse between the. departure of Jesus 
and His return. In Matt. 25 : 5 the bridegroom tarries much longer than the bridal 
procession expected ; 24 : 48, the unfaithful servant strengthens himself in his evil- 
doing by the reflection that his Lord delayeth His coming. Matt. 24 : 14, the gospel 
is to be preached in all the world and to all the Gentiles (Mark 16 : 15, to every 
creature) ; and Matt. 26 : 13, Mary's act is to be published in the whole world before 
Jesus shall return. In fine, the gospel shall transform humanity not by a magical 
process, but by slow and profound working, like that of leaven in dough. The king- 
dom of God will grow on the earth like a tree which proceeds from an imperceptible 
seed, and which serves in its maturity to shelter the birds of heaven. And Jesus, 
who knew human nature so deeply, could have imagined that such a work could have, 
been accomplished in less than forty years ! Who can admit it ? The confusion 
which prevails in this whole discourse, Matt. 24 (as well as in Mark 13), and which 
distinguishes it from the two distinct discourses of Luke, must therefore be ascribed 
not to Jesus, but to the account which Matthew used as the basis of his recital. 

This confusion in Matthew is probably closely connected with the Judeo-Christian 
point of view, under the sway of which primitive tradition took its form. In the 
prophets, the drama of the last days, which closes the eschatological perspective, em- 



446 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

braces as two events nearly following one another, the judgment whereby Israel is 
purified by means of the Gentiles, and the punishment of the Gentiles by Jehovah. 
Preoccupied with this view, the hearers of Jesus easily overlooked in His discourses 
certain transitions which reserved the interval between those two events usually com- 
bined in the O. T. ; and that so much the more, as, on looking at it closely, the de- 
struction of Jerusalem is really ihe first act of the world's judgment and of the end 
of the days. The harvest of an early tree announces and inaugurates the general 
harvest ; so the judgment of Jerusalem is the prelude and even the first act of the 
judgment of humanity. *The Jew has priority in judgment, because he had priority 
of grace (comp. the two corresponding nptiTov, Rom. 2 : 9, 10). With the judgment 
on Jerusalem, the hour of the world's judgment has really struck. The present epoch 
is due to a suspension of the judgment already begun — a suspension the aim of which 
is to make way for the time of grace which is to be granted to the Gentiles (naipol 
eBvov, the times of the Gentiles). The close combination of the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem with the end of the world in Matthew, though containing an error in a chrono- 
logical point of view, rests on a moral idea which is profoundly true. 

Thus everything authorizes us to give the preference to Luke's account. 1. Mat- 
thew's constant habit of grouping together in one, materials belonging to different dis- 
courses ; 2. The precise historical situation which gave rise to the special discourse of 
chap. 17 on the coming of Christ, and which cannot be an invention of Luke ; 3. The 
established fact, that the confusion which marks the discourse of Matthew was foreign 
to the mind of Jesus ; 4. Finally, we have a positive witness to the accuracy of Luke ; 
that is Mark. For though his great eschatological discourse (chap. 13) presents the 
same confusion as that of Matthew in the question of the disciples which calls it 
forth, it is completely at one with Luke, and, like him, mentions only one subject, 
the destruction of Jerusalem. 

Might Mark have taken the form of his question from Luke, and that of the dis- 
course from Matthew, as Bleek alleges ? But the incongruity to which such a course 
would have led would be unworthy of a serious writer. Besides, the form of the 
question is not the same in Mark as in Luke. Finally, the original details which we 
have pointed out in Mark, as well as those special and precise details with which his 
narrative abounds from the day of the entry into Jerusalem onward, do not admit of 
this supposition. No more can Luke have taken his question from Mark. He would 
have borrowed at the same time the details peculiar to Mark which he wants, and the 
form of the question is too well adapted in his Gospel to the contents of the discourse 
to admit of this supposition. It must therefore be concluded, that if in the compila- 
tion of the discourse Mark came under the influence of the tradition to which Mat- 
thew's form is due, the form of the question in his Gospel nevertheless remains as a 
very striking trace of the accuracy of Luke's account. The form of the question in 
Matthew must have been modified to suit the contents of the discourse ; and thus it 
is that it has lost its original unity and precision, which are preserved in the other two 
evangelists. 

2. The Discourse : vers. 8-36. — The four points treated by Jesus are : 1st. The 
apparent signs, which must not be mistaken for true signs (vers. 8-19) ; 2d. The true 
sign, and the destruction of Jerusalem which will immediately follow it, with the 
time of the Gentiles which will be connected with it (vers. 20-24) ; 3d. The Parousia, 
which will bring this period to an end (vers. 25-27) ; 4th. The practical application 
(vers. 28-36). 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 447 

Vers. 8-19.* The Signs which are not such. — " But He said, Take heed that ye be 
not deceived ; for many shall come in my name, saying, 1 am he, and the time draw- 
eth near. Go ye not therefore after them. 9. And when ye shall hear of wars and 
commotions, be not terrified ; for these things must first come to pass ; but the end 
cometh not so speedily. 10. Then said He unto them, Nation shall rise against 
nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 11. And great earthquakes shall be in divers 
places, and famines, and pestilences, as we'll as great and terrible signs from heaven. 
12. But above all, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering 
you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, bringing you before kings and rulers for 
my name's sake. 13. But it shall turn to you for a testimony. 14. Settle it, there- 
fore, in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer. 15. For 1 will give 
you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor 
resist. 16. And ye shall be betrayed even by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and 
friends ; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death ; 17. And ye shall be hated 
of all for my name's sake ; 18. And there shall not an hair of your head perish. 19. 
In your patience save ye your lives." The sign to w T hich the question of the apostle 
refers is not indicated till ver. 20. The signs vers. 8-19 are enumerated solely to put 
believers on their guard against the decisive value which they might be led to ascribe 
to them. The vulgar are inclined to look on certain extraordinary events in nature 
or society as the evidences of some approaching catastrophe. Many events of this 
kind will happen, Jesus means to say, but without your being warranted yet to con- 
clude that the great event is near, and so to take measures precipitately. The seduc- 
tion of which Matthew and Mark speak is that which shall be practiced by the false 
Messiahs. The meaning is probably the same in Luke {yap). History, it is true, does 
not attest the presence of false Messiahs before the destruction of Jerusalem. And 
those who are most embarrassed by this fact are just our modern critics, who see in 
this discourse nothing but a prophecy ab evenlu. They suppose that the author 
alludes to such men as Judas the Galilean, the Egyptian (Acts 21), Theudas, and 
others, prudently described by Josephus as mere heads of parties, but who really put 
forth Messianic pretensions. This assertion is hard to prove. For our part, who see in 
this discourse a real prophecy, we think that Jesus meant to put believers on their 
guard against false teachers, such as Simon the magician, of whom there may have 
been a great number at this period, though he is the only one of whom profane his- 
tory speaks. "The /jltj izTorjdfjvai, not to let themselves he terrified (ver. 9), refers to the 
temptation to a premature emigration. Comp. the opposite ver. 21. Further, it 
must not be concluded from the political convulsions which shall shake the East that 
the destruction of Jerusalem is now near. 

Jesus had uttered in substance His whole thought in those few words ; and He 
might have passed immediately to the contrast hrav 6e, but when (ver. 20). Yet He 
develops the same idea more at length, vers. 10-19 Hence the words in which Luke 
expressly resumes his report : Then said lie unto them (ver. 10). This passage, vers. 
10-19, might therefore have been inserted here by Luke as a fragment borrowed from 

* Ver. 8. 1*. B. D. L. X. 2 Mnn. Vss. omit ovv. Ver. 11. &. B. L. place xai be- 
fore ycara ronovS. Ver. 12. &. B. D. L. 3 Mnn., aitayofxEvovZ instead of ayojue- 
rov$. Ver. 14. The mss. are divided between Qe6Qe and Bete, between eiS raS xap- 
SiaS (T. R.) and ev raiS xapdicaS (Alex.). Ver. 15. &• B. L. 5 Mnn., avri6T7}vai r/ 
avTEiitEiv instead of arzEntEiv ovds avri6xr}vai. Ver. 18. Marcion omitted this 
verse. Ver. 19. A. B. some Mnn. Syr. It. Vg., xt7j6e6Be instead of Hrr)6a6bE. 



448 COMxUEKTARY Otf ST. LUKE. 

a separate document differing from the source whence he took the rest of the dis- 
course. We should not take the words Meyev avroh as a parenthetical proposition, 
and connect tots with kyspQrjosTaL : " Then said He unto them, One nation shall rise." 
According to the analogy of Luke's style, we should rather translate : " Then said 
He unto them, One nation . . ." When to great political commotions there are 
added certain physical phenomena, the imagination is carried away, and the people 
become prophets. Jesus puts the Church 'of Palestine on its guard against this ten- 
dency (ver. 11). It is well known that the times which preceded the destruction of 
Jerusalem were signalized in the East by many calamities, particularly by a dreadful 
famine which took place under Claudius, and by the earthquake which destroyed 
Laodicea, Hierapolis, etc., in 67 or 68.* By the signs from heaven we are to understand 
meteors, auroras, eclipses, etc., phenomena to which the vulgar readily attach a pro- 
phetic significance. 

One of those events which contribute most to inflame fanaticism in a religious 
community is persecution ; thus are connected vers. 12 and 13. Those which are 
announced will arise either from the Jews (synagogues), like that marked by the 
martyrdoms of Stephen and James, or from the Gentiles (kings and rulers), like that 
to which Paul was exposed in Palestine, or that Taised by Nero at Rome. In the 
phrase, before all these, the npd (before) refers to the importance of this sign, not to its 
time. Meyer denies that Tcpo can have this meaning ; but Passow's dictionary cites a 
host of examples for it. It is, besides, the only meaning which suits the context. If 
Tzpo here signifies before, why not speak of the persecutions before the preceding signs ? 
What Jesus means by this word is, that among all those signs, this is the one which 
might most easily throw His disciples out of the calm attitude in which they ought to 
persevere. We have translated the passive ayofxsvovs by the active (bringing). It is 
hardly possible to render the passive form into English. Holtzmann thinks that Luke 
here traces after ihe event, though in the form of prophecy, the picture of those 
persecutions to which St. Paul was exposed. Can we suppose an evangelist, to 
whom Jesus is the object of faith, alio wing himself deliberately thus to put words into 
His mouth after his fancy ? Bleek applies the word testimony (ver. 13) to that which 
will accrue to the apostles from this proof of their fidelity. It is more natural, hav- 
ing in view the connection with vers. 14 and 15 (therefore, ver. 14), to understand by 
it what they shall themselves render on occasion of their persecution. This idea falls 
back again into the Be not terrified : " All that will only end in giving you the oppor- 
tunity of glorifying me!" It is the same with vers. 14 and 15, the object of which 
is to inspire them with the most entire tranquillity of soul in the carrying out of their 
mission. Jesus charges Himself with everything : iyd 66cu, 1 will give. The mouth 
is here the emblem of the perfect ease with which they shall become the organs of the 
wisdom of Jesus, without the least preparation. The term avTSLirelv, gainsay, refers 
to the fact that their adversaries shall find it impossible to make any valid reply to 
the defence of the disciples ; the word resist, to the powerlessness to answer when the 
disciples, assuming the offensive, shall attack them with the sword of the gospel. In 
the Alex, reading, which places avrioTrjvcu first, we must explain f] in the sense of or 
even. 

To official persecution there shall be added the sufferings of domestic enmity. The 

* " The Annals of Tacitus and the Antiquities of Josephus prove famines, earth- 
quakes, etc., in the times of Claudius and Nero and of the Jewish war" (Strauss, 
" Leben Jesu fur d. d. Yolk," p. 238). 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 449 

name of Jesus will open up a gulf between them and their nearest. Ver. 17 is almost 
identical with John 15 : 21. But even in that case there will be no ground for dis- 
quiet. The time will not yet have come for them to quit the accursed city and land. 
Ver. 18 : " There shall not an hair of your head perish," seems to contradict the 
close of ver. 16 : " some of you shall perish." This contradiction is explained by 
the general point of view from which we explain this piece : There shall, indeed, be 
some individual believers who shall perish in the persecution, but the Christian com- 
munity of Palestine as a whole shall escape the extermination which will overtake 
the Jewish people. Their condition is indicated in ver. 19, where this piece is 
resumed. It is one of patience, that is to say, peaceful waiting for the divine signal, 
without being drawn aside either by the appeals of a false patriotism or by persecu- 
tion, or by false signs and anti-Christian seductions. The fut. KTijaecBe in A. B. is 
probably a correction of the aor. KT7Joao6e (T. R.). The imper. signifies : " Embrace 
the means which seem the way to lose everything . . . and ye shall save your- 
selves." KraoQai does not mean to possess (Ostervald), but to acquire. The word 
suggests that of Jeremiah, 1 will give thee thy life for a prey. And now at length 
comes the contrast : the time when it will be necessary to leave the passive attitude 
for that of action (orav 6£, but when, ver. 20). 

Vers. 20-24.* The True Sign, and the Catastrophe. — "But when ye shall see 
Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. 21. 
Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains ; and let them which are in 
the city depart out ; and let not them that are in the fields enter thereinto. 22. For 
these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. 23. 
But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days ; 
for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. 24. And 
they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all 
nations ; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the 
Gentiles be fulfilled." Here is the direct answer to the disciples' question : " When 
. . . and with what sign ?" Jesus up till now has been warning believers not to 
give way to hasty measures. Now He guards them, on the contrary, against the 
illusions of fanatical Jews, who to the end will cherish the belief that God will not 
fail to save Jerusalem by a miracle. "By no means, answers Jesus : be assured in 
that hour that all is over, and that destruction is near and irrevocable." The sign 
indicated by Luke is the investment of Jerusalem by a hostile army. We see nothing 
to hinder us from regarding this sign as identical in sense with that announced by 
Matthew and Mark in Daniel's words (in the LXX.) : the abomination of desolation 
standing in the holy place. Why not understand thereby the Gentile standards planted 
on the sacred soil which surrounds the holy city ? Luke has substituted for the 
obscure prophetic expression a term more intelligible to Gentiles. It has often beeij 
concluded from this substitution, that Luke had modified the form of Jesus' saying 
under the influence of the event itself, and that consequently he had written after the 
destruction of Jerusalem. But if Jesus really predicted, as we have no doubt He did, 
the taking of Jerusalem, the substitution of Luke's term for the synonym of Daniel 
might have been made before the event as easily as after. Keim sees in the expression 
of the other Syn. the announcement of a simple profanation of the temple, like that 

* Ver. 21. Marcion omitted vers. 21 and 22. Ver. 23. 11 Mjj. 30 Mnn. It. Vg. 
omit ev before tu lau, which T. R. reads, with 9 Mjj. 



450 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

of Antiochus Epiphanes — a prediction which, according to him, was not fulfilled. 
But in this case we must establish a contradiction between this threat and that of the 
entire destruction of the temple (Matt. ver. 6 ; Mark, ver. 2), which is purely arbitrary. 
This utterance preserved the church of Palestine from the infatuation which, 
from the beginning of the war, seized upon the whole Jewish nation. Remembering 
the warning of Jesus of the approach of the Roman armies, the Christians of Judea 
fled to Pella beyond Jordan, and thus escaped the catastrophe (Eus. " Hist. Eccl." 
iii. 5, ed. Lsemmer). They applied the expression, the mountains (ver. 21), to the 
mountainous plateaus of Gilead. Ver. 21. "Let those who dwell in the capital not 
remain there, and let those who dwell in the country not take refuge in it." The 
inhabitants of the country ordinarily seek their safety behind the walls of the capital 
But in this case, this is the very point on which the whole violence of the storm will 
break. Ver. 22 gives the reason of this dispensation. Comp. 11 : 50, 51. Ver. 23 
exhibits the difficulty of flight in such circumstances. Luke here omits the saying of 
Matthew about the impossibility of flight on the Sabbath, which had no direct appli- 
cation to Gentiles. The land should be taken in the restricted sense which we give 
the word, the country. St. Paul seems to allude to the expression, wrath upon this 
people, in Rom. 2 : 5-8 and 1 Thess. 2 : 16. Ver. 24. A million of Jews perished in 
this war ; 97,000 were led captive to Egypt and the other provinces of the empire 
(Josephus). The term -narovjxivri, trodden, denotes more than taking possession ; it is 
the oppression and contempt which follow conquest ; comp. Rev. 11 : 2. This 
unnatural state of things will last till the end of the times offlw Gentiles. What means 
this expression peculiar to Luke 2 According to Meyer and Bleek, nothing more than : 
the time of Gentile dominion over Jerusalem. But would it not be a tautology to say : 
Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles until the time of Gentile dominion 
come to an end ? Then the plural natpoi, the times, is not sufficiently accounted for on 
this view. Neither is the choice of the term mipos, the opportunity, instead of xP^ V0 ^> 
a certain space of time.' In the passage 19 : 44, the time of Israel, ncupbi denotes the 
season when God visits this people with the offer of salvation. According to this 
analogy, the times of the Gentiles should designate the whole period during which God 
shall approach with His grace the Gentiles who have been hitherto strangers to His 
kingdom. Comp. 2 Cor. 6 . 2, the expressions Kaipdg detcro?, rjfxepa ouTTjpiag. The 
plural tcatpoi, the times, corresponds with the plural the nations ; the Gentile peoples 
are called one after another ; hence there arises in this one epoch a plurality of 
phases. 

Modern criticism accuses Luke of having introduced into the discourse of Jesus at 
his own hand this important idea, which is wanting in Mark and Matthew (Holtz- 
mann, p. 406). This supposition, indeed, is inevitable, if his work is founded on 
those two writings or on the documents from which they are drawn, the proto-Mark 
or the Logia, e.g. But if this saying is not found in the other two Syn., the thought 
which it expresses is very clearly implied. Do they not both speak of the preaching 
of the gospel to all Gentile peoples (Matt. 24 : 14), and of a baptism to be brought to 
every creature (Mark 16 : 15 ; Matt. 28 : 19) ? Such a work demands time. Gess refers 
also to Mark 12 ; 9, Matt. 21 : 43, and 22 : 18, where Jesus declares that the kingdom 
of God will pass for a time to the Gentiles, and that they will bring forth the fruits 
thereof, and where He describes the invitation which shall be addressed to them with 
this view by the servants of the Master (parable of the marriage supper). All this 
work necessarily supposes a special period in history. Can Jesus have thought of 
this period as before the destruction of Jerusalem ? We have already proved the falsity 
of this assertion. When, therefore, in Luke Jesus inserts the times of the Gentiles 



COMMEKTAKY OK ST. LUKE. . 451 

between the destruction of Jerusalem and the Parousia, He says nothing but what is 
implied in His utterances quoted by the other two Syn., necessary in itself, and con- 
sequently in keeping with His real thought. That established, is it not very arbitrary 
to affect suspicion of Luke's saying in which this idea is positively expressed ? This 
era of the Gentiles was a notion foreign to the O. T. For, in the prophetic view, the 
end of the theocracy always coincided with that of the present world. We can thus 
understand how, in the reproduction of Jesus' sayings within the bosom of the 
Judeo-Christian Church, this notion, unconnected with anything in their past views, 
could be effaced, and disappear from that oral proclamation of the gospel which 
determined the form of our two first Syn. In possession of more exact written 
documents, Luke here, as in so many other eases, restored the sayings of Jesus to 
their true form. If Jesus, who fixed so exactly the time of the destruction of Jerusalem* 
("this generation shall not pass till . . ."), declared in the same discourse that 
He did not Himself know the day of His corning (Mark 13 : 32), it must infallibly have 
been because He placed a longer or shorter interval between those two events — an 
interval which is precisely the period of the Gentiles. Is not this explanation more 
probable than that which, contrary to all psychological possibility, ascribes to Luke 
so strange a license * as that of deliberately putting into his Master's mouth sayings 
which He never uttered ? 

Vers. 25-27. f The Parousia. — "And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the 
moon, and in the stars ; and in the earth distress of nations with perplexity ; the sea 
and the waves roaring ; 26. Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after 
those things which are coming on the earth ; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. 
27. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great 
glory." We have found that the main subject of this discourse was the destruction 
of the temple of Jerusalem. But how could our Lord close the treatment of this sub- 
ject, and the mention of the epoch of the Gentiles which was to follow this catas- 
trophe, without terminating by indicating the Parousia, the limit of the prophetic 
perspective ? The mention which He made in passing of this last event, which was 
to consummate the judgment of the world begun by the former, doubtless contributed 
to the combination of the two subjects, and to the confounding of the two discourses 
in tradition. The intermediate idea, therefore, between vers. 24 and 25 is this : 
" And when those times of the period of grace granted to the Gentiles shall be at an 
end, then there shall be . . . ; " then follows the summary description of the 
Parousia. Those two judgments, that of the theocracy and that of the world, which 
Luke separates by the times of the Gentiles, are closely connected in Matthew by the 
evdeuS, immediately, ver. 29, and by the words following : after the tribulation of those 
days, which cannot well refer to anything else than the great tribulation mentioned 
ver. 21, that is to say, to the destruction of Jerusalem (vers. 15-20). In fact, the 
Parousia is mentioned here by Matthew (ver. 27) only to condemn beforehand the 
lying revelations of false prophets (vers. 23-26) as to the form of that event. In Mark 
there is the same connection as in Matthew, though somewhat less absolute, between 
the destruction of Jerusalem and the Parousia (" in those days," but without the 
immediately of Matthew). The three writers' compilations are, it is easily seen, inde- 
pendent of one another. 

Jesus described, 17 : 26-30 and 18 : 8, the state of worldliness into which society 
and the Church itself would sink in the last times. In the midst of this carnal 

* Holtzmann, on occasion of the piece vers. 25-36, says, in speaking of Luke : 
" Noch weiter geht die Licenz . . ." (p. 237). 

f Ver. 25. J*. B. D., eaovrai instead of ecrai, Alex. It. Vg., yxovs instead of 
7)Xovgt]S (T. R, Byz.). 



452 . COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

security, alarming symptoms will all at once proclaim one of those universal revolu- 
tions through which our earth has more than once passed. Like a ship creaking in 
every timber at the moment of its going to pieces, the globe which we inhabit (n 
o).K.ovnevrj), and our whole solar system, shall undergo unusual commotions. The mov- 
ing forces (dwdfiets), regular in their action till then, shall be as it were set free from 
their laws by an unknown power ; and at the end of this violent but short distress, 
the world shall see Him appear whose coming shall be like the lightning which shines 
from one end of heaven to the other (1? : 24). The cloud is here, as almost every- 
where in Scripture, the symbol of judgment. The gathering of the elect, placed here 
by Matthew and Mark, is mentioned by St. Paul, 1 Thess. 4 : l(f, 17, 2 Thess. 2 : 1, 
where the word enicvvayidyr] reminds us of the ETncwdyeLv of the two evangelists. Is 
it hot a proof of the falsity of that style of criticism which seeks to explain every 
difference in text between the Syn. by ascribing to them opposite points of view ? 
Ver. 27. It is not said thaj the Lord shall return to the earth to remain there. This 
coming can be only a momentary appearance, destined to effect the resurrection of the 
faithful and the ascension of the entire Church (1 Cor. 15 : 23 ; Luke 17 : 31-35 ; 1 
Thess. 4 : 16, 17). 

Vers. 28-36.* The Application. — "When these things begin to come to pass, 
then look up, and lift up your heads ; for your redemption draweth nigh. 29. And 
He spake to them a parable : Behold the fig-tree, and all the trees ; 30. When they 
now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at 
hand. 31. So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the 
kingdom of God is nigh at hand. ' 32. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall 
not pass away till all be fulfilled. 33. Heaven and earth shall pass aWay ; but my 
words shall not jjass away. 34. But take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your 
hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so 
that day come upon you unawares. 35. For as a snare it shall come on all them that 
dwell on the face of the whole earth. 36. Watch ye, therefore, and pray always, that 
ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to 
stand before the Son of man." Jesus draws practical conclusions from the whole of 
the preceding discourse : 1. In respect of hope, vers. 28-33 ; 2. In respect of watch- 
fulness, vers. 34-36. 

Vers. 28-33. It might be thought that after this saying relative to the Parousia 
(vers. 26, 27), which is strictly speaking a digression, Jesus returns to the principal 
topic of this discourse, the destruction of Jerusalem. The expression : your deliver- 
ance, would then denote the emancipation of the Judeo- Christian Church by the de- 
struction of the persecuting Jewish power. The coming of the kingdom of God, ver. 
31, would refer to the propagation of the gospel among the Gentiles ; and ver. 32 : 
this generation shall not pass away, would thus indicate quite naturally the date of the 
destruction of Jerusalem. Yet the fact of the Parousia, once mentioned, is too solemn 
to be treated as a purely accessory idea. The kingdom of God seems, therefore, neces- 
sarily to denote here rather the final establishment of the Messianic kingdom ; and the 
deliverance (ver. 28) should be applied to the definitive emancipation of the Church by 
the return of the Lord (the deliverance of the widow, 18 : 1-8). Of yourselves, ver. 

* Ver 33. &. B. D. L. 3 Mnn., -rcape/iEVGovTac instead of TrapeXOoxu (which is taken 
from Matthew and Mark). Ver. 35. 8. B. D., <Je instead of ow. Ver. 36, 8. B. L. 
X. 7 Mnn., iiarioxvorj-e instead of Kara^o)0n T ^ 15 Mjj. omit ravra. 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 453 

30 : " It is not necessary that an official proclamation announce to the inhabitants of 
the world that summer is near !" It is about the middle of March that fruits begin to 
show themselves on the old branches of the spring fig-tree ; they reach maturity be- 
fore the shooting of the leaves. The first harvest is gathered in June (Keim, iii. p. 
206). 

Can ver. 32 refer still to the Parousia ? But in that case, how are we to explain 
the expression : this generation ? Jerome understood by it the human species, Origen 
and Chrysostom the Christian Church. These explanations are now regarded as 
forced. That of Dorner and Blggenbach, who take it to mean the Jewish people 
(applying to their conversion the image of the fig-tree flourishing again, vers. 29, 30), 
is not much more natural. In this context, where we hare to do with a chronolog- 
ical determination (" is nigh," ver. 31), the meaning of yeved must be temporal. Be- 
sides, we have the authentic commentary on this saying in Luke 11 : 50, 51, where 
Jesus declares that it is the very generation which is to shed His blood and that of 
His messengers, which must suffer, besides, the punishment of all the innocent blood 
shed since that of Abel down to this last. It is not less false to give to this expres- 
sion, with the Tiibingen school, such an extension that it embraces a period of 70 
years (Hilgenfeld), or even of a century (Yolkmar) : the duration of a man's life. It 
has not this meaning among the ancients. In Herod. (2. 142, 7. 171), Heraclitus, and 
Thuc. (1. 14), it denotes a space of from 30 to 40 years. A century counts three gen- 
erations. The saying of Irenseus respecting the composition of the Apocalypse, 
wherein he declares " that this vision was seen not long before his epoch, almost 
within the time of our generation, toward the end of Domitian's reign," does not at 
all prove the contrary, as Volkmar alleges ; for Irenaeus says expressly : cxedov, 
almost, well aware that he is extending the reach of the term generation beyond its 
ordinary application. An impartial exegesis, therefore, leaves no doubt that this say- 
ing fixes the date of the near destruction of Jerusalem at least the third of a century 
after the ministry of Jesus. The meaning is : " The generation which shall shed this 
blood shall not pass away till God require it" (in opposition to all the blood of the 
ancients which has remained so long unavenged). Jlavra, all things, refers to all those 
events precursive of that catastrophe which are enumerated vers. 8-19, and to the 
catastrophe itself (20-24). The position of this saying immediately after the preceding 
verses relative to the Parousia, seems to be in Luke a faint evidence of the influence 
exercised by that confusion which reigns throughout the whole discourse as related 
by the other two Syn. There is nothing in that to surprise us. Would not the omis- 
siou of some word of transition, or the simple displacing of some sentence, suffice to 
produce this effect ? And how many cases of similar transpositions or omissions are 
to be met with in our Syn. ? But if this observation is well founded, it proves that 
the Gospel of Luke was not composed, any more than the other two, after the de- 
struction of Jerusalem. 

Heaven and earth (ver. 33) are contrasted with those magnificent structures which 
His disciples would have Him to admire (ver. 5) : Here is a very different overthrow 
from that which they had so much difficulty in believing. This universe, this temple 
made by the hand of God, passeth away ; one thing remains : the threats and promises 
of the Master who is speaking to them. 

Vers. 34-36. Here, as in chap. 12, the life of the disciples is apparently to be pro- 
longed till the Parousia. The reason is, that that period is ever to remain the point 
on which the believer's heart should fix (12 .- 36) ; and if, by all Ihe generations which 



454: COMME^TAKY OK ST. LUKE. 

precede the last, this expectation is not realized in its visible form, it has its truth, 
nevertheless, in the fact of death, that constant individual returning of Jesus which 
prepares for His general and final advent. The warning ver. 34 refers to the danger 
of slumbering, arising from the state of the world in the last times, 17 : 26-30. On 
the last words of the verse, comp. 1 Thess. 5 : 1-7. Ver. 35. The image is that of 
a net which all at once incloses a covey of birds peacefully settled in a field. To watch 
(ver. 36) is the emblem of constant expectation. With expectation prayer is naturally 
conjoined under the influence of that grave feeling which is produced by the 
imminence of the expected advent. The word craBfjvaL, to stand upright, indicates the 
solemnity of the event. A divine power will be needed, if we are not to sink before 
the Son of man in His glory, and be forced to exclaim : " Mountains, fall on us !" 

"With this discourse before it, the embarrassment of rationalism is great. How 
explain the announcement of the destruction of Jerusalem, if there are no prophecies ? 
that of the Parousia, if Jesus is but a sinful man like ourselves (not to say, with 
R6nan, a fanatic) ? Baur and Strauss say : Under the influence of Daniel's extrava- 
gant sayings, Jesus could easily predict His return ; but He could not announce the 
destruction of Jerusalem. Hase and Schenkel say : Jesus, as a good politician, might 
well foresee and predict the destruction of the temple, but (and this is also M. Colani's 
opinion) it is impossible to make a fanatic of Him announcing His return. Each writer 
thus determines d 'priori the result of his criticism, according to his own dogmatic con- 
viction. It is perfectly useless to discuss the matter on such bases. Keim recognizes 
the indisputable historical reality of the announcement of the destruction of Jerusalem, 
on the ground of Matt. 26 : 60 (the false witnesses), and of Acts 6 : 11-14 (Stephen), 
and the truth of the promise of the Parousia as well , the saying Mark 13 : 32 is a proof 
of it which cannot be evaded. Nevertheless, agreeing in part with M. Colani, he re- 
gards the discourse Matt. 24 as the composition of an author much later than the 
ministry of Jesus, who has improved upon some actual words of His. This apoca- 
lyptic poem, Jewish according to Weizsacker, Judeo-Christian according to Colani 
and Keim, was written shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem. 

The following are our objections to this hypothesis : 1. It is not in this discourse 
only that Jesus announces the catastrophe of Israel, and appends the extraordinary 
assertion of His return. On the destruction of Jerusalem, read again Matt. 21 : 44, 
Luke 19 : 42-44, Mark 11 : 14, 20, 12 : 9, etc. etc. ; and on the Parousia, Matt. 7 : 21-23, 
19 : 28, 25 : 31-46, 26 : 63, 64, Luke 9 : 26 and parall., 13 : 23-27, etc. How could 
those numerous declarations which we find scattered over different parts of our Syn. 
Gospels, be all borrowed from this alleged apocalyptic poem ? 2. How could a private 
composition have obtained such general authority, under the very eyes of the apos- 
tles or their first disciples, that it found admission into our three Syn. Gospels as an 
authentic saying of our Lord ? Was ever a pure poem transformed into an exact and 
solemn discourse, such as that expressly put by our three evangelists at this deter- 
minate historical time into the mouth of Jesus ? Such a hypothesis is nothing else 
than a stroke of desperation. 

Volkmar finds in this discourse, as everywhere, the result of the miserable in- 
trigues of the Christian parties. John the apostle had published in 68 the great rev- 
erie of the Apocalypse. He still hoped for the preservation of the temple (Rev. 
11:1^ seq.), which proves that he had never heard his Master announce its destruc- 
tion. Five years later, in 73, Mark composes another Apocalypse, intended to rectify 
the former. He elaborates it from the Pauline standpoint ; he rejects its too precise 
dates, and the details which had been hazarded, but which the event had proved false ; 
the fixing, e.g. , of the three years and a half which were to extend to the Parousia, a 
date for which he prudently substitutes the saying : "As to that day, even I myself 
know it not, " etc. Such is the origin of the great eschatological discourse in the 
Syn., the most ancient monument of which is Mark 13. But, 1. This alleged dog- 
matic contrast between the discourse Mark 13 and the Apocalypse exists only in the 
mind of Volkmar ; the latter celebrates the conversion of the Gentiles with the same 
enthusiasm as the former foretells it. 2. The composition of the Apocalypse in 68 is 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 455 

an hypothesis, the falsehood of which we have,. as we think, demonstrated.* 3. It is 
utterly false that the Apocalypse teaches the preservation of the temple of Jerusalem. 
The description 11 : 1 et seq., if it is to be rescued from absurdity, must necessarily 
be taken in a figurative sense, as we have also demonstrate^ f 4. Certainly the poet- 
ical representations of the Apocalypse were not the original of the simple, concise, 
prosaic expressions of the discourse of Jesus in the Syn. ; it was these, on the con- 
trary, which served as a canvas for the rich delineations of the Apocalypse. Is it not 
evident that the literal terms war, famine, pestilence, earthquakes, in the mouth of 
Jesus (Luke 21 : 9-11 and parall.), are amplified and developed into the form of com- 
plete visions in the apocalyptic seals (war, in Rev. 6 : 3, 4 ; famine, in vers. 5:6; 
pestilence, in vers. 7, 8 ; earthquake, in vers. 12-17 ; comp. also the persecutions fore- 
told Luke 5 : 16, 17, with Rev. 6 : 9-11, and the false Christs and prophets predicted 
Matt. 24 :24, with Rev. 13) ? The inverse procedure, the return from the elaborate to 
the simple, from the Apocalypse to the Gospels, is in its very nature inadmissible. 
The composition of Jesus' discourse in the Syn. is therefore anterior to that of the 
Apocalypse, and not the reverse. 5. The historical declaration of Jesus in Mark : 
" Of that day knoweth no man, not even the Son," is confirmed by Matt. 24 : 36 and 
Mark 12 : 35. It results from the very contents of this marvellous saying. Who 
would have thought, at the time, when the conviction of the Lord's divinity was mak- 
ing way with so much force in the Church, and when Jesus was represented in this 
very discourse as the universal Judge, of putting into His mouth a saying which 
seemed to bring Him down to the level of other human beings ? Such a saying must 
have rested on the most authentic tradition. 6. We have proved the mutual inde- 
pendence of the three synoptical accounts. The origin of this discourse of Jesus 
was therefore, no doubt, apostolical tradition circulating in the Church, agreeably to 
Luke 1:1,2. 

Jesus then called Himself, and consequently either knew or believed Himself to 
be, the future judge of the Church and the world. In the former case, He must be 
something more than a sinful man — He can be only the God-man ; in the latter, He 
is only a fool carried away with pride. In vain will MM. Colani, Volkmar, and Keim 
attempt to escape from this dilemma. Genuine historical criticism and an impartial 
exegesis will always raise it anew, and allow no other choice than between the Christ 
of the Church and the clever charmer of M. Renan. 

What conclusion should be drawn from this discourse as to the date when our 
S} r n., and Luke in particular, were composed? De Wette has justly concluded, 
from the close connection which this discourse, as we have it in Matthew, fixes be- 
tween the destruction of Jerusalem and the Parousia, that this Gospel must have been 
composed before the former of those two events. And, in truth, it requires all 
Volkmar's audacity to attempt to prove the contrary by means of that very evbeus, 
immediately (24 : 29), which so directly, as we have seen, connects the second event 
with the first. But if this conclusion is well founded in regard to the first Gospel, it 
is not less applicable to the second, which in this respect is in exactly the same cir- 
cumstances as the first. As to Luke, it has often been inferred from the well- 
marked distinction kept up between the two subjects and the two discourses (Parou- 
sia, chap. 17 ; destruction of Jerusalem chap. 21), that he wrote after the destruction 
of Jerusalem, when the interval between the two events was historically established. 
Rational as this conclusion may appear at first sight, it is nevertheless unfounded. 
For, 1. Luke himself, as we have seen at ver. 32, is not wholly exempt from the con- 
fusion which prevails in the other two. 2. If Jesus in His own judgment distinctly 
separated those two events, why might He not have spoken of them Himself in two 
separate discourses ; and why might not Luke, in this case as in many others, have 
simply reproduced the historical fact from more exact originals (1 : 3, 4) ? 

3. General View of the Situation : vers. 37, 384 — The preceding discourse was 
delivered by Jesus on the Tuesday or Wednesday, evening. Luke here characterizes 
our Lord's mode of living during the last days of His life. kvU&ohai : to pass the 

* " Bulletin Theologique," 1865, pp. 236-249. . f lb. p. 242. 

X Ver. 38. 4 Mnn. add at the end of this verse, kui airnABov tnac-or eii tov omov 
avrov, then the narrative John 8 : 1-11. 



456 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

night in the open air. The use of the els arises from the idea of motion contained in 
efrpxtiftevos (Bleek). 4 Mnn. place here, after ver. 38, the account of the woman 
taken in adultery, which in a large number of documents is found John 7 : 53-8 : 11. 
We can only see in this jJieee, in Luke as well as in John, an interpolation doubtless 
owing to some marginal note taken by a copyist from the Gospel of the Hebrews, 
and which in some mss. had found its way into the text of the Gospel. As to the 
rest, this narrative would stand much better in Luke than in John, It has a close 
bond of connection with the contents of chap. 20 (the snares laid for Jesus). And 
an event of this kind may have actually occurred in the two or three days which are 
summarily described in vers. 37 and 38. 



SIXTH PART. 



THE PASSION. 

CHAPS. 22 AND 23. 

The Saviour had taken up a truly royal attitude in the temple. Now this short 
anticipation of His kingdom, the normal blossoming of His prophetic activity, is 
over ; and limiting Himself to a silence and passivity which have earned for this 
period the name of the Passion, He exercises that terrestrial priesthood which was to 
be the transition from His prophetic ministry to His celestial sovereignty. 

We find in the fourth Gospel (chap. 12) a scene which must have occurred on one 
of the days referred to by Luke 21 : 37, 38, the discourse which Jesus uttered in the 
temple in answer to the question of some Greek proselytes who had desired to con- 
verse with Him, and the divine manifestation which took place on that occasion. 
Then it is said, " And He departed, and did hide Himself from them" (ver. 36). 
This departure could not be that of Matt. 24 : 1 (parall. Luke 21 : 5). The scene 
which precedes differs too widely. It took place, therefore, one or two days later ; 
and this supposition agrees with the meaning of the last two verses of chap. 21, which 
forbid us to believe that after the eschatological discourse Jesus did not reappear in 
the temple. Thus, if we place the entry into Jerusalem on Sunday afternoon, the 
purification of the temple on Monday (Mark), the captious questions put to Him on 
Tuesday, and the prophecy respecting the destruction of Jerusalem on the evening of 
that day, the temple scene related John 12 may have occurred on Wednesday ; in 
which case, Jesus would pass the last day, Thursday, in His retreat at Bethany with 
His disciples. If it is alleged, with Bleek, that the entry on Palm Day took place on 
Monday, each of the events mentioned is put back a day ; and the temple scene fall- 
ing in this case on Thursday, Jesus must, on the contrary, have passed this last day, 
like all the rest, at Jerusalem. Whatever Keim may say, who alleges two days of 
complete retirement, Wednesday and Thursday, everything considered, we regard 
the second supposition as the simplest. 

The narrative of the Passion comprehends : I. The preparation for the Passion 
(22 : 1-46). II. The Passion (22 : 47 ; 23 : 46). III. The events following the Passion 
(23 : 47-56). 

FIRST CYCLE.— CHAP. 22 : 1-46. 

The Preparation for the Passion. 

This cycle comprehends the three following events : Judas preparing for the 
Passion by selling Jesus ; Jesus preparing His disciples for it at His last supper ; His 
preparing Himself for it by prayer in Gethsemane. 



458 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

I. T he Treachery of Judas : 22:1-6.* — Vers. 1-6. The resolution of the Sanhedrim 
was taken. The only question for it henceforth was that of the how (to ttws, ver. 2). Its 
perplexity arose from the extraordinary favor which Jesus enjoyed with the people, 
particularly with the crowds who had come from Galilee and from abroad ; the rulers 
feared a popular rising on the part of those numerous friends who had come from a 
distance with Him, and of whom they did nut feel themselves the masters, as they 
did of the population of Jerusalem. So, according to Matthew and Mark, they said 
in their conclaves, " Not during the feast," which may signify either before, ere the 
multitudes are fully assembled, or after, when they shall have departed, and they 
shall be again masters of the field. But it was in exact keeping with the divine plan 
that Jesus should die during the feast (kv n) kop-f) ; and the perfidy of Judas, the means 
which the rulers thought they could use to attain their end, was that of which God 
made use to attain His. 

It appears from Matt. 26 : 2 and Mark 14 : 1 that it was Wednesday when the 
negotiation between Judas and the Sanhedrim took place. Luke and Mark omit the 
words of Jesus (Matthew), " In two days is the Passover . . ." But those two 
days appear in Mark in the form of the narrative. The word Passover, to naoxa, from 
HDD > m Aramaic ft nCD> signifies a passing, and commemorates the manner in 
which the Israelites were spared in Egypt when the Almighty passed over their 
houses, sprinkled with the blood of the lamb, without slaying their first-born. This 
name, which originally denoted the lamb, was applied later to the Supper itself, then 
to the entire feast. The Passover was celebrated in the first month, called Nisan, 
from the 15th of the month, the day of full moon, to the 21st. This season corre- 
sponds to the end of March and beginning of April. The feast opened on the evening 
which closed the 14th and began the 15th, with the Paschal Supper. Originally 
every father, in virtue of the priesthood belonging to every Israelite, sacrificed his 
lamb himself at his own house. But since the Passover celebrated by Josiah, the 
lambs were sacrificed in the temple, and with the help of the priests. This act took 
place on the afternoon of the 14th, from three to six o'clock. Some hours after the 
Supper began, which was prolonged far into the night. This Supper opened the 
feast of unleavened bread (iopTr? tuv afy/xuv, ver. 1) which, according to the law, 
lasted the seven following days. The first and last (15th and 21st) were sabbatic. 
The intermediate days were not hallowed by acts of worship and sacrifices ; work was 
lawful. As Josephus expressly says that the feast of unleavened bread lasted eight 
days, agreeing with our Syn., who make it begin on the 14th (ver. 7 ; Matt. 26 : 17 ; 
Mark 14 : 12), and not on the 15th, we must conclude that in practice the use of 
unleavened bread had been gradually extended to the 14th. To the present day, it is 
on the night between the 13th and 14th that all leaven is removed from Israelitish 
houses. 

Luke, ver. 3, ascribes the conduct of Judas to a Satanic influence. He goes the 
length of saying that Satan entered into him. He means to remark here, in a general 
way, the intervention of that superior agent in this extraordinary crime ; while John, 
seeking to characterize its various degrees, more exactly distinguishes the time when 
Satan put into the heart of Judas the first thought of it (comp. 13 : 2), and the 

* V er - 3. A. B. D. L. X., Kalovjuevov instead of Eiritcahovfievov. Ver. 4. 0. P. 10 
Mnn. Syr. ItP lwi <i ne , add kcu tolS ypa/jfiarevaiv after roiS apxiepevaiv. C. P. 9 Mnn. 
Syr sch . add tov tepov after oTpanjyots. Ver. 5. The mss. are divided between 
apyvpiov and apyvpia. Ver. 6. »* C. ItP leri i«e ) om i t K0U e fafio2.oyrioev. 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 459 

moment when he entered into him so as to take entire possession of his will (13 : 27). 
According to the biblical view, this intervention of Satan did not at all exclude the 
liberty of Judas. This disciple, in joining the service of Jesus, had not taken care 
to deny his own life, as Jesus so often urged His own to do. Jesus, instead of be- 
coming the end to his heart, had remained the means. And now, when he saw things 
terminating in a result entirely opposed to that with which he had ambitiously flat- 
tered himself, he wished at least to try to benefit by the false position into which he 
had put himself with his nation, and to use his advantages as a disciple in order to 
regain the favor of the rulers with whom he had bioken. The thirty pieces of silver 
certainly played only a secondary part in his treachery, although this part was real 
notwithstanding ; for the epithet thief (John 12 : 6) is given to him with the view of 
putting his habitual conduct in connection with this final act. Matthew and Mark 
insert here the narrative of the feast at Bethany, though it must have taken place 
some days before (John). The reason for this insertion is an association of ideas aris- 
ing from the moral relation between these two particulars in which the avarice of 
Judas showed itself. The cTparriyoi, captains (ver. 4), are the heads of the soldiery 
charged with keeping guard over the temple (Acts 4 : 1). There was a positive con- 
tract {they covenanted, lie promised). "A rep, not at a distance from the multitude, but 
witlwut a multitude ; that is to say, without any flocking together produced by the 
occasion. This wholly unexpected offer determined the Sanhedrim to act before 
rather than after the feast. But in order to that, it was necessary to make haste ; the 
last moment had come. 

II. The Last Supper : 22 : 7-38. — We find ourselves here face to face with a diffi- 
culty which, gince the second century of the Church, has arrested the attentive 
readers of the Scriptures. As it was on the 14th Nisan, in the afternoon, that the 
Paschal lamb was sacrificed, that it might be eaten the evening of the same day, it 
has been customary to take the time designated by the words, ver. 7, Then came the 
day of unleavened bread when the Passover must be killed (comp. Matthew and Mark), 
as falling on the morning of that 14th day ; from which it would follow that the 
Supper, related ver. 14, et seq. , took place the evening between the 14th and 15th. 
This view seems to be confirmed by the parallels Matt. 26 : 17, Mark 14 : 12, where the 
disciples (not Jesus, as in Luke) take the initiative in the steps needed for the Supper 
If such was the fact, it appeared that the apostles could not have been occupied with 
the matter till the morning of the 14th. But thereby the explanation came into con- 
flict with John, who seems to say in a considerable number of passages that Jesus 
was crucified on the afternoon of the 14th, at the time when they were slaying the 
lamb in the temple, which necessarily supposes that the last Supper of Jesus with 
His disciples took place the evening between the 13th and 14th, the eve before that 
on which Israel celebrated the Paschal Supper, and not the evening between the 14th 
and 15th. This seeming contradiction does not bear on the day of the week on which 
Jesus was crucified. According to our four Gospels, this day was indisputably 
Friday. The difference relates merely to the day of the month, but on that very 
account, also, to the relation between the last Supper of Jesus at which He instituted 
the Eucharist, and the Paschal feast of that year. Many commentators— Wieseler, 
Hofmann, Lichtenstein, Tholuck, Riggenbach— think that they can identify the 
meaning of John's passages with the idea which at first sight appears to be that of 
the synoptical narrative ; Jesus, according to John as according to the Syn., cele- 
brated His last Supper on the evening of the 14th, and instituted the Holy Supper 



460 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

while celebrating the Passover conjointly with the whole people. We have explained 
in our " Commentaire sur l'evangile de Jean" the reasons which appear to us to ren- 
der this solution impossible.* The arguments advanced since then by the learned 
Catholic theologian Langen, and by the eminent philologist Baumlein, have not 
changed our conviction. f The meaning which presents itself first to the mind on 
reading John's Gospel, is and remains the only possible one, exegetically speaking. 
But it may and should be asked in return, What is the true meaning of the synoptical 
narrative, and its relation to John's account thus understood ? Such is the point 
which we proceed to examine as we study more closely the text of Luke. 

The narrative of Luke embraces : 1. The preparation for the feast (vers. 7-13) ; 2. 
The feast itself (vers. 14-23) ; 3. The conversations which followed the feast (vers. 
24-38.) 

1. The Preparations : vers. 7-134 — There is a marked difference between the 
7)1Be, came, of ver. 7, and the %yyi&, drew nigh, of ver. 1. The word drew nigh placed 
us one or two days before the Passover ; the word came denotes the beginning of the 
day on which the lamb was killed, the 14th. Is this time,, as is ordinarily supposed, 
the morning of the 14th ? But after the Jewish mode of reckoning, the 14th began 
at even, about six o'clock. The whole night between the 13th and 14th, in our lan- 
guage, belonged to the 14th. How, then, could the word came apply to a time when 
the entire first half of the day was already past ? The came of ver. 7 seems to us, 
therefore, to denote what in our language we should call the evening of the 13th 
(among the Jews the time of transition from the 13th to the 14th, from four to six 
o'clock). The expressions of Matthew and Mark, without being so precise, do not 
necessarily lead to a different meaning. Indeed, the expression of Mark, ver. 12, 
does not signify, " at the time when they killed . . ." but " the day when they 
. . ." But may we place on the 13th, in the evening, the command of Jesus to 
His two disciples to prepare the feast for the morrow ? That is not only possible, but 
necessary. On the morning of the 14th it would have been too late to think of pro- 

* See at 13 : 1, 18 : 28, 19 : 14, and the special dissertation, t. ii. pp. 629-636. 

f Langen, " Die letzten Lebenstage Jesu," 1864 ; Baumlein, " Commentar iiber das 
Evaugelium Johannis," 1863. Both apply the expression before the feast of Pass- 
over (John, 13 : 1), to the evening of the 14th, making the feast of Passover, property 
so called, begin on the morning of the 15th. Langen justifies this way of speaking 
by Deut. 16 : 6, where he translates : "At the rising of the sun (instead of at the 
going down of the sun) is the feast of the coming forth out of Egypt." This trans- 
lation is contrary to the analogy of Gen. 28 : 11, etc. The passage of Josephus which 
he adds (Antiq. iii. 10. 5) has as little force. We think that we have demonstrated 
how insufficient is Deut. 16 : 2 to justify that interpretation of John 18 : 28 which 
would reduce the meaning of the phrase, to eat the Passover, to the idea of eating the 
unleavened bread and the sacrificial viands of the Paschal week. As to John 19 : 14, 
there is no doubt that, as Langen proves, the N. T. (Mark 15 i 42), the Talmud, and 
the Fathers use the term napaotcevT), preparation, to denote Friday as the weekly prep- 
aration for the Sabbath, and that, consequently, in certain contexts the expression 
irapaaKEvi) rod Tvaoxa, preparation of the Passover, might signify the Friday of the Pass- 
over week. But this meaning is excluded in John : 1st. By the ambiguity which the 
expression must have presented to the mind of his Greek readers ; 2d. By the fact 
that no reader of the Gospel could be ignorant that the narrative lay in the Paschal 
week. 

X Ver. 7. B. C. D. L. omit ev before v- Ver. 10. 2*. B. C. L., «s v v instead of ov 
or ov sav. Ver. 12. Instead of avuyEov (T. R. with X. I\), 4 Mjj. avuyaiov, the 
others avayacov. &. L. X., kolkel instead of ekel, Ver. 13. &. B, C, D. L., eip^kel 
instead of ELprjuEv. 



COMMENTARY OH ST. LUKE. 461 

curing an apartment for that very evening. Strauss fully acknowledges this : * "In 
consequence of the flocking of pilgrims from a distance, it was of course difficult, and 
even impossible to find on the morning of the first day of the feast (the 14th), for the 
very evening, a room not yet taken up." Places were then taken at least a day in 
advance. Clement of Alexandria, on this account, gives the 13th the name of 
irpoEToi/iaoia , pi^o-preparation. The 14th was the preparation, because on that day the 
lamb was killed ; the 13th, the pro-preparation, because, as Clement says, on that day 
they consecrated the unleavened bread and took all the other steps necessary for the 
Paschal feast. f Hence it follows, that the question put by Matthew and Mark into 
the mouth of the disciples, " Where wilt Thou that we prepare the Passover ?" must 
likewise be placed on the evening of the 13th, which for the Jews was already pass- 
ing into the 14th. It matters little, therefore, so far as this question is concerned, 
whether the initiative be ascribed to Jesus (Luke) or to the disciples (Matthew and 
Mark). As to the rest, on this point the narrative of Luke is evidently the most pre- 
cise and exact, for he also, ver, 9, relates the question of the disciples, but replacing 
it in its true position. Luke alone mentions the names of the two apostles chosen. 
He must have borrowed this detail from a private source —at least if he did not invent 
it ! In any case, the fact would not agree very well with his alleged habitual animos- 
ity against St. Peter.}: Jesus must have had an object in specially choosing those 
two disciples. We shall see, in fact, that this was a confidential mission, which 
could be trusted to none but His surest and most intimate friends. If it was between 
four and six o'clock in the evening, the apostles had yet time to execute their com- 
mission before night, whether they had passed the day in the chVv, and Jesus left them 
to do it when He Himself was starting for Bethany with the purpose of returning later 
to Jerusalem, or whether He had passed the whole of this last day at Bethany, and 
sent them from the latter place. 

Why does Jesus not describe to them more plainly (vers. 10-12) the host whom He 
has in view ? There is but one answer ; He wishes the house where He reckons on 
celebrating the feast to remain unknown to those who surround Him at tie time when 
He gives this order. This is why, instead of describing it, He gives the sign indi- 
cated. Jesus knew the projects of Judas ; the whole narrative of the feast which 
follows proves this ; and He wished, by acting in this way, to escape from the hin- 
drances which the treachery of His disciple might have put in His way in the use 
which He desired to make of this last evening. The sign indicated, a man drawing 
water from a fountain, is not so accidental as it appears. On the evening of the 13th, 
before the stars appeared in tlie heavens, every father, according to Jewish custom, had 
to repair to the fountain to draw pure water with which to knead the unleavened 
bread. It was, in fact, a rite which was carried through to the words : ' ' This is the 
water of unleavened bread." Then a torch was lighted, and during some following 
part of the night the house was visited, and searched in every corner, to put away 
the smallest vestige of leaven. There is thus a closer relation than appears between 
the sign and its meaning. Here is a new proof of the supernatural knowledge of 

* " Leben Jesu fur d. d. Volk," p. 533. 

f " On this day (the 13th) took place the consecration of the unleavened bread 
and the pro-preparation of the feast." (Fragment of his book, irepl tov Traa^a, pre- 
served in the " Chronicon Paschale.") 

% So small a thing does not trouble Baur ! Here, according to him, we have a 
malicious notice from Luke, who wishes to indicate those two chiefs of the Twelve as 
the representatives of ancient Judaism (!). 



462 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

Jesus. The fact is omitted in Matthew. As usual, this evangelist abridges the narra- 
tive of facts. Probably Jesus knew the master of the house mentioned ver. 11. and 
had already asked this service of him conditionally (ver. 12). 'Avdyaiov (in the Attic 
form, avuyeov), the upper room, which sometimes occupies a part of the terrace of the 
house. All furnished : provided with the necessary divans and tables (the tricli- 
nivm, in the shape of a horseshoe). 

Matthew (26 : 18) has preserved to us, in the message of Jesus to the master of the 
house, a saying which deserves to be weighed : " My time is at hand ; let me keep 
the Passover at thy house with my disciples." How does the first of those two prop- 
ositions form a ground for the request implied in the second ? Commentators have 
seen in the first an appeal to the owner's sensibilities : I am about to die ; grant me 
this last service Ewald somewhat differently : Soon I shall be in my glory, and I 
shall be able to requite thee for this service. These explanations are far-fetched. "We 
can explain the thought of Jesus, if those words express the necessity under which 
He finds Himself laid, by the nearness of His death, to anticipate the celebration of 
the Passover : " My death is near ; to-morrow it will be too late for me to keep the 
Passover ; let me celebrate it at thy house [this evening] with my disciples." Hoifi is 
not the att. fut. (Bleek), but the present (Winer) : " Let me keep it immediately." It 
was a call to the owner instantly to prepare the room, and everything which was nec- 
essary for the feast. The two disciples were to make those preparations in conjunc- 
tion with the host. No doubt the lamb could not be slain in the temple ; but could 
Jesus, being excommunicated with all His adherents, and already even laid under 
sentence of arrest by the Sanhedrim (John 11 : 53-57), have had His lamb slain on the 
morrow in the legal form ? That is far from probable. Jesus is about to substitute 
the new Passover for the old. How should He not have the right to free Himself 
from the letter of the ordinance ? all the more that, according to the original institu- 
tion, every father was required himself to slay the Paschal lamb in his dwelling. 
He freed Himself in like manner from the law as to the day. He is forced, indeed, 
to do so, if He wishes Himself to substitute the new feast for the old. The decision 
of the Sanhedrim to put Him to death before the feast (Matt. 26 : 5), leaves Him no 
choice. This entire state of things agrees with the expression which John uses : 
deinvov yevofj-ivov, a supper having taken place (13 : 2). • 

2. The Supper : vers. 14-23. — There are three elements which form the material 
of this narrative in the three Syn. : 1st. The expression of the personal feelings of 
Jesus. With this Luke begins, and Matthew and Mark close. 2d. The institution 
of the Holy Supper. It forms the centre of the narrative in the three Syn. 3d. The 
disclosure of the betrayal, and the indication oi the traitor. With this Luke ends, and 
Matthew and Mark begin. It is easy to see how deeply the facts themselves were 
impressed on .the memory of the witnesses, but how secondary the interest was which 
tradition attached to chronological order. The myth, on the contrary, would have 
created the whole of a piece, and the result would be wholly different. Luke's order 
appears preferable. It is natural for Jesus to begin by giving utterance to His per- 
sonal impressions, vers. 15-18. With the painful feeling, of approaching separation 
there is connected, by an easily understood bond, the institution of the Holy Supper, 
that sign which is in a way to perpetuate Christ's visible presence in the midst of 
His own after His departure, vers. 19, 20. Finally, the view of the close communion 
contracted by this solemn act between the disciples causes the feeling of the contrast 
between them and Judas, so agonizing to Him, to break forth into expression. Such 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 463 

is the connection of the third part. It is far from probable, as it seems to us, that 
Jesus began by speaking of this last subject (Matthew and Mark). John omits the first 
two elements. The first was not essential to his narrative. The second, the institu- 
tion of the Holy Supper, was sufficiently well known from tradition. We have, in 
our " Commentaire sur l'evangile de Jean," placed this latter event at the time in- 
dicated by 13 : 2 in that Gospel (detirvov yevouivov). The feet-washing which followed 
necessarily coincides with the indication of the traitor in Luke, and with the subse- 
quent conversation, ver. 24 et seq. ; and the two accounts thus meet in the common 
point, the prediction of Peter's denial (Luke, ver. 31 ; John, ver. 38). 

As in what follows there are repeated allusions to the rites of the Paschal Supper, 
we must rapidly trace the outlines of that Supper as it was celebrated in our Saviour's 
time. First step : After prayer, the father of the house sent round a cup full of wine 
(according to others, each one had his cup), with this invocation : " Blessed be Thou, 
O Lord our God, King of the world, who hast created the fruit of the vine !" Next 
there were passed from one to another the bitter herbs (a sort of salad), which re- 
called to mind the sufferings of the Egyptian bondage. These were eaten after being 
dipped in a reddish sweet sauce {Charoseth), made of almonds, nuts, figs, and other 
fruits ; commemorating, it is said, by its color the hard labor of brick-making im- 
posed on the Israelites, and by its taste, the divine alleviations which Jehovah 
mingles with the miseries of His people. Second step : The father circulates a 
second cup, and then explains, probably in a more or less fixed liturgical form, the 
meaning of the feast, and of the rites by which it is distinguished. Third step : The 
father takes two unleavened loaves (cakes), breaks one of them, and places the pieces 
of it on the other. Then, uttering a thanksgiving, he takes one of the pieces, dips it 
in the sauce, and eats it, taking with it a piece of the Paschal Lamb, along with bit- 
ter herbs. Each one follows his example. This is the feast properly so called. The 
lamb forms the principal dish. The conversation is free. It closes with the distri- 
bution of a third cup, called the cup of blessing, because it was accompanied with the 
giving of thanks by the father of the house. Fourth step : The father distributes a 
fourth cup ; then the Hallel is sung (Ps. 113-118). Sometimes the father added a fifth 
cup, which was accompanied with the singing of the grmt Hallel (Ps. 120-127 ; ac- 
cording to others, 135-137 ; according to Delitzsch, Ps. 136).* 

Must it be held, with Langen, that Jesus began by celebrating the entire Jewish 
ceremony, in order to connect with it thereafter the Christian Holy Supper ; or did 
He transform, as He went along, the Jewish supper in such a way as to convert it 
into the sacred Supper of the N. T. ? This second view seems to us the only tenable 
one. For, 1. It was during the course of the feast, koBiovruv avrtiv (Matthew and 
Mark), and not after the feast (as Luke says in speaking of the only cup), that the 
bread of the Holy Supper must have been distributed. 2. The singiug of the hymn 
spoken of by Mark and Matthew can only be that of the Hallel, and it followed the 
institution of the Holy Supper. 

1st. Vers. 14-18. f Jesus opens the feast by communicating to the disciples His 

* This ritual is very variously described by those who have given attention to the 
subject. We have followed the account of Langen, p. 147 et seq. 

f Ver. 14.- »* B. D. Vss. omit dotieica. Ver. 16. 6 Mil omit ovketi. &. B. C. L. 
5 Mnn. Vss., avro instead of e| avrov. Ver. 17. 6 Mjj. 25 Mnn. add to before 
7roT7}piov (taken from ver. 20). & c B. C. L. M. 8 Mnn. Syr. It. Vg., sic eavrovs instead 
of eavroic Ver. 18. 5 Mjj. 15 Mnn. omit on. 6 Mjj. 15 Mnn. add arro rov vw after 
iria. &. B. F. L. 10 Mnn,, ov instead of orov. 



464 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

present impressions. This first step corresponds to the first of the Paschal feast. The 
hour (ver. 14) is that which He had indicated to His disciples, and which probably 
coincided with the usual hour of the sacred feast. According to the law (Ex. 12 : 17), 
the Passover should have been eaten standing. But custom had introduced a change 
in this particular. Some Rabbins pretend to justify this deviation, by saying that to 
stand is the posture of a slave ; that, once restored to libert}' by the going forth from 
Egypt, Israel was called to eat sitting. The explanation is ingenious, but devised 
after the fact. The real reason was, that the feast had gradually taken larger pro- 
portions. There is in the first saying of Jesus, which Luke alone has preserved (ver. 
15), a mixture of profound joy and sorrow. Jesus is glad that He can celebrate this 
holy feast once more, which He has determined by His own instrumentality to trans- 
form into a permanent memorial of His person and work ; but on the other hand, it 
is His last Passover here below. 'EmQvpip kneBv/iijaa, a frequent form in the LXX., 
corresponding to the Hebrew construction of the inf. absolute with the finite verb. It 
is a sort of reduplication of the verbal idea. Jesus, no doubt, alludes to all the meas- 
ures which He has required to take to secure the joy of those quiet hours despite 
the treachery of His disciple. Could the expression this Passover possibly denote a 
feast at which the Paschal lamb was wanting, and which was only distinguish- 
ed from ordinary suppers by unleavened bread ? Such is the view of Caspari 
and Andrese, and the view which 1 myself maintained (" Comment, sur Jean," 
t. ii. p. 634) Indeed the number of lambs or kids might turn out to be in- 
sufficient, and strangers find themselves in the dilemma either of celebrating 
the feast without a lamb, or not celebrating the Passover at all. Thus in " Misch- 
nab Pesachim" 10 there is express mention of a Paschal Supper without a lamb, 
and at which the unleavened bread is alone indispensable. Nevertheless, there is 
nothing to prevent us from holding that, as we have said, the two disciples prepared 
the lamb in a strictly private manner. It would be difficult to explain Luke's ex- 
pression, to eat this Passover, without the smallest reference to the lamb at this feast. 
By the future Passover in the kingdom of God (ver. 16) might be understood the 
Holy Supper as it is celebrated in the Church. But the expression, " 1 will not any 
more eat thereof until . . • . " and -the parall. ver. 18, do not admit of this spirit- 
ualistic interpretation. Jesus means to speak of a new banquet which shall take place 
after the consummation of all things. The Holy Supper is the bond of union between 
the lsraelitish and typical Passover, which was reaching its goal, and the heavenly 
and divine feast, which was yet in the distant future. Does not the spiritual salva- 
tion, of which the Supper is the memorial, form in reality the transition from the ex- 
ternal deliverance of Israel to that salvation at once spiritual and external which 
awaits the glorified Church ? 

After this simple and touching introduction, Jesus, in conformity with the received 
custom, passed the first cup (ver. 17), accompanying it with a thanksgiving, in which 
He no doubt paraphrased freely the invocation uttered at the opening of the feast by 
the father of the house, and which we have quoted above. AeZd/uevoS, receiving, 
seems to indicate that He took the cup from the hands of one of the attendants who 
held it out to Him (after having filled it). The distribution (SiafiepiaaTe) may have 
taken place in two ways, either by each drinking from the common cup, or by their 
all emptying the wine of that cup into their own. The Greek term would suit better 
this second view. Did Jesus Himself drink ? The pron. kavrolc, among yourselves, 
might seem unfavorable to this idea ; yet the words, 1 will not drink until . , . 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 465 

speak in favor of the affirmative. Was it not, besides, a sign of communion from 
which Jesus could hardly think of refraining on such an occasion ? The expression 
fruit of the vine, ver. 18, was an echo of the terms of the ritual Paschal prayer. In 
the mouth of Jesus, it expressed the feeling of contrast between the present terrestrial 
system, and the glorified creation which was to spring from the palingenesia (Matt. 
19 : 28 ; comp. Rom. 8 : 31 et seq.). The phrase, I will not drink, corresponds to the 
I will not any more eat of ver. 16. But there is a gradation. Ver. 16 means, This is 
my last Passover, the last year of my life ; ver. 18, This is my last Supper, my last 
day. These words are the text from which Paul has taken the commentary, till He 
come (1 Cor. 11 : 26). They are probably also the ground into which was wrought the 
famous tradition of Papias regarding the fabulous vines of the millennial reign. In 
this example, the difference becomes palpable between the sobriety of the tradition 
preserved in our Gospels, and the legendary exuberance of that of the times which 
followed. Ver. 29 of Matthew and 25 of Mark reproduce Luke's saying in a some- 
what different form, and one which lends itself still better to the amplification which 
we find in Papias. 

2d. Vers. 19, 20.* The time when the Holy Supper was instituted seems to us to 
correspond to the second and third steps of the Paschal feast taken together. With 
the explanation which the head of the house gave of the meaning of the ceremony, 
Jesus connected that which He had to give regarding the substitution of His person 
for the Paschal lamb as the means of salvation, and regarding the difference between 
the two deliverances. And when the time came at which the father took the un- 
leavened cakes and consecrated them by thanksgiving to make them, along with the 
lamb, the memorial of the deliverance from Egypt, Jesus also took the bread, and by 
a similar consecration, made it the memorial of that salvation which He was about to 
procure for us. In the expression, This is my body, the supposed relation between the 
body and the bread should not be sought in their substance. The appendix : given for 
you, in Luke ; broken for you, in Paul (1 Cor. 11 : 24), indicates the true point of cor- 
respondence. No doubt, in Paul, this participle might be a gloss. But an interpola- 
tion would have been taken from Luke ; they would not have invented this Hapax- 
legomenon k?.6/j.evov. Are we not accustomed to the arbitrary or purely negligent 
omissions of the Alex, text ? I think, therefore, that this participle of Paul, as well 
as the given of Luke, are in the Greek text the necessary paraphrase of the literal 
Aramaic form. This is my body for you, a form which the Greek ear could as little bear 
as ours. The idea of this Klufievov is, in any case, taken from the preceding f/c/We, 
and determines the meaning of the formula, This is my body. As to the word is, 
which has been so much insisted on, it was not uttered by Jesus, who must have 
said in Aramaic, Eaggouschmi, " This here [behold] my body !" The exact meaning 
of the notion of being, which logically connects this subject with this attribute, can 
only be determined by the context. Is the point in question an identity of substance, 
physical or spiritual, or a relation purely symbolical ? From the exegetical point of 
view, if what we have said above about the real point of comparison is well founded, 
it would be difficult to avoid the latter conclusion. It is confirmed by the meaning of 
the tovto which follows : " Do this in remembrance of me." This pron. can denote 
nothing but the act of breaking, and thus precisely the point which appeared to us the 
natural link of connection between the bread and the body. The last words, which 

* Ver. 20. & B. L. place kcu to noTrjpiov before (jocivtuS, 



466 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

contain the institution properly so called of a permanent rite, are wanting in Matthew 
and Mark. But the certified fact of the regular celebration of the Holy Supper as a 
feast commemorating the death of Jesus from the most primitive times of the Church, 
supposes a command of Jesus to this effect, and fully confirms the formula of Paul 
and Luke. Jesus meant to preserve the Passover, but by renewing its meauing. Mat- 
thew and Mark preserved of the words of institution only that which referred to the 
new meaning given to the ceremony. As to the command of Jesus, it had not been 
preserved in the liturgical formula, because it was implied in the very act of celebrat- 
ing the rite. 

A certain interval must have separated the second act of the institution from the 
first ; for Luke says : After they had supped (ver. 20), exactly as Paul. Jesus, accord- 
ing to custom, let conversation take free course for some time. After this free inter- 
val, He resumed the solemn attitude which He had taken in breaking the bread. So 
we explain the uoavrus, likewise. The word to noTrjpwv, the cup, is the object of the 
two verbs %a(36v . . . eSokev at the beginning of ver. 19. The art. to is here added, 
because the cup is already known (ver. 17). This cup certainly corresponded to the 
third of the Paschal Feast, which bore the name of cup of blessing. So St. Paul calls 
it (1 Cor. 10 : 16) : the cup of blessing (evhoyias), which we bless. In this expression of 
the apostle the word bless is repeated, because it is taken in two different senses. In 
the first instance, it refers to God, whom the Church, like the Israelitish family of 
old, blesses and adores ; in the second, to the cup which the Church consecrates, and 
which by this religious act becomes to the conscience of believers the memorial of 
the blood of Jesus Christ. What this cup represents, according to the terms of Paul 
and Luke, is the new covenant between God and man, founded on the shedding of 
Jesus' blood. In Matthew and Mark, it is the blood itself. Jesus can hardly have 
placed the two forms in juxtaposition, as Langen supposes, who thinks that He said : 
" Drink ye all of this cup ; for it is the cup which contains my blood, the blood of 
the new covenant." Such a periphrasis is incompatible with the style proper to the 
institution of a rite, which has always something concise and monumental. There is 
thus room to choose between the form of Matthew and Mark and that of Paul and 
Luke. Now, is it not probable that oral tradition and ecclesiastical custom would 
tend to make the second formula, relative to the wine, uniform with the first, which 
refers to the bread, rather than to diversify them ? Hence it follows that the greatest 
historical probability is in favor of the form in which the two sayings of Jesus least 
resemble one another, that is to say, in favor of that of Paul and Luke. 

Every covenant among the ancients was sealed by some symbolic act. The new 
covenant, which on God's side rests on the free gift of salvation, and on man's side on 
its acceptance by faith, has henceforth, as its permanent symbol in the Church, this 
cup which Jesus holds out to His own, and which each of them freely takes and 
brings to his lips. The O. T. had also been founded on blood (Gen. 15 : 8 el seq.). 
It had been renewed in Egypt by the same means (Ex. 12 : 22, 23, 24 : 8). The par- 
ticiple understood between diaB^Kij and ev t& dijiaTi is the verbal idea taken from the 
subst. diaQrjKT] (SiaTiQefieurj) : the covenant [covenanted] in my blood. Baur, Volkmar, and 
Keim think that it is Paul who has here introduced the idea of the new covenant. 
For it would never have entered into the thought of Judeo-Christianity thus to repu- 
diate the old covenant, and proclaim a new one. Mark, even while copying Paul, 
designedly weakened this expression, they say, by rejecting the too offensive epithet 
new. Luke, a bolder Paulinist, restored it, thus reproducing Paul's complete for- 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 467 

mula. And how, we must ask, did Jesus express Himself ? Was He incapable, He 
also, of rising to the idea of a new covenant thenceforth substituted for the old V He 
incapable of doing what had already been done so grandly six centuries before by a 
simple prophet (Jer. 31 : 31 etseq.) ! And when we tbink of it, is not Mark's formula 
(which is probably also the text in Matthew), far from being weaker than that of 
Paul — is it not even more forcible ? If the expression of Mark is translated : "This 
is my blood, that of the covenant," is not the very name covenant thereby refused to 
the old ? And if it is translated : " This is the blood of my covenant," does not this 
saying contrast the two covenants with one another as profoundly as is done by the 
epithet new in Paul and Luke ? 

The non. abs. to kKxvv6/j.evov, by rendering the idea of the shedding of the blood 
grammatically independent, serves to bring it more strongly into relief. This appen- 
dix, which is wanting in Paul, connects Luke's formula with that of the other two 
evangelists. Instead of for you, the latter say, for many. It is the Qi^S niany, of 
Isa. 53 : 12, the D^2H U^ of Isa. 52 : 15, those many nations which are to be 
sprinkled with the blood of the slain Messiah. Jesus contemplates them in spirit, 
those myriads of Jewish and Gentile believers who in future ages shall press to the 
banquet which He is instituting. Paul here repeats the command : Do this . . . 
on which rests the permanent celebration of the rite. In this point, too, Luke's for- 
mula corresponds more nearly to that of the Syn. than to his. 

If there is a passage in respect to which it is morally impossible to assert that the 
narrators — if they be regarded ever so little as seriously believing — arbitrarily modified 
the tenor of the sayings of Jesus, it is this. How, then, are we to account for the 
differences which exist between the four forms ? There must have existed from the 
beginning, in the J udeo- Christian churches, a generally received liturgical formula 
for the celebration of the Holy Supper. This is certainly what has been preserved to 
us by Matthew and Mark. Only, the differences which exist between them prove that 
they have not used a written document, and that as little has the one copied the 
other ; thus the command of Jesus : " Drink ye all of it" (Matthew), which appears 
in Mark in the form of a positive fact : " And they all drank of it ;" thus, again, in 
Mark, the omission of the appendix : " for the remission of sins" (Matthew). We 
therefore find in them what is substantially one and the same tradition, but slightly 
modified by oral transmission. The very different form of Paul and Luke obliges us 
to seek another original. This source is indicated by Paul himself : " I have received 
of the Lord that which also 1 delivered unto j T ou" (1 Cor. 11 : 23). The expression, 
1 have received, admits of no view but that of a communication which is personal to 
him ; and the words, of the Lord, only of an immediate revelation from Jesus Him- 
self ( a true philologist will not object to the use of diro instead of irapd). If Paul had 
had no other authority to allege than oral tradition emanating from the apostles, and 
known universally in the Church, the form used by him : "I have received (eyd ydp) 
of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you . . ." could not be exonerated 
from the charge of deception. This circumstance, as well as the difference between 
the two formulas, decides in^avor of the form of Paul and Luke. In the slight differ- 
ences which exist between them, we can, besides, trace the influence exercised on 
Luke by the traditional -liturgical form as it has been preserved to us by Matthew and 
Mark. As to St. John, the deliberate omission which is imputed to him would have 
been useless at the time when he wrote ; still more in the second century, for the cer- 
emony of the Holy Supper was then celebrated in all the churches of the world. A 
forger would have taken care not to overthrow the authority of his narrative in the 
minds of his readers by such an omission. 

About the meaning of the Holy Supper, we shall say only a few words. Thi^ cere 
mony seems to us to represent the totality of salvation ; the bread, the communica- 
tion of the life of Christ ; the wine, the gift of pardon ; in other words, according to 
Paul's language, sanctification and justification. In instituting the rite, Jesus natu- 



468 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

rally began with the bread ; for the shedding of the blood supposes the breaking of the 
vessel which contains it, the body. But as in the believer's obtaining of salvation it 
is by justification that we come into possession of the life of Christ, St. Paul, 1 Cor. 
10 : 16 et seq., follows the opposite order, and begins with the cup, which represents 
the first grace which faith lays hold of, that of pardon. In the act itself there are rep- 
resented the two aspects of the work — thewdivine offer, and human acceptance. The 
side of human acceptance is clear to the consciousness of the partaker. His business 
is simply, as Paul says, " to sH'ow the Lord's death," 1 Cor. 11 :26. It is not so 
with the divine side ; it is unfathomable and mysterious : " The communion of the 
blood, and of the body of Christ !" 1 Cor. 10 : 16. Here, therefore, we are called to 
apply the saying : " The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but those things 
which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all 
the words of this law," Deut. 29 : 29. We know already what we have to do to 
celebrate a true communion. We may leave to God the secret of what He gives us 
in a right communion. Is it necessary to go farther in search of the formula of 
union V 

3d. Vers. 21-23.* " Only, behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on 
the table. 22. And truly the Son of man goeth as it was determined : But woe unto 
that man by whom He is betrayed ! 23. And they began to inquire among them- 
selves which of them it was that should do this thing." As He follows the cup cir- 
culating among the disciples, the attention of Jesus is fixed on Judas. In the midst 
of those hearts, henceforth united by so close a bond, there is one who remains out- 
side of the common salvation, and rushes upon destruction. This contrast wounds the 
heart of Jesus. II/l^v, excepting, announces precisely the exception Judas forms in 
this circle ; idov, behold, points to the surprise which so unexpected a disclosure must 
produce in the disciples. If this form used by Luke is historically trustworthy, 
there can be no doubt that Judas took part in celebrating the Holy Supper. No doubt 
the narratives of Matthew and Mark do nbt favor this view ; but they do not ex- 
pressly contradict it, and we have already shown that the order in which Luke gives 
the three facts composing the narrative of the feast, is much more natural than theirs. 
Besides, John's order confirms that of Luke, if, as we think we have demonstrated 
(" Comment sur Jean," t. ii. p. 540 et seq.), the Holy Supper was instituted at the time 
indicated in 13 : 1, 2. Moreover, John's narrative shows that Jesus returned again 
and again during the feast to the treachery of Judas. As lusual, tradition had com- 
bined those sayings uttered on the same subject at*'crifferent points of time, and it is 
in this summary form that they have passed into our Syn. The expression of Mat- 
thew : " dipping the hand into the dish with me," signifies in a general way (like that 
of Luke: "being with me on the table," and the parallels): " beiDg my guest." 
Jesus does not distress Himself about what is in store for Him ; He is not the sport 
of this traitor ; everything, so far as He is concerned, is divinely decreed (ver. 22). 
His life is not in the hands of a Judas. The Messiah ought to die. But He grieves 
over the crime and lot of him who uses his liberty to betffey Him, 

The reading on is less simple than nai, and is hardly compatible with the fiev. 
The irhijv, only (ver. 21) is contrasted with the idea of the divine decree in upiouivov. 
It serves the end of reserving the liberty and responsibility of Judas. The fact that 
every disciple, on hearing this saying, turned his thoughts upon himself, proves the 
consummate ability with which Judas had succeeded in concealing his feelings and 
plans/ The \mn ky6, Is it It of the disciples in Matthew and Mark, finds its natural 

* Ver. 22. The mss. are divided between koi (T. R, Byz.) and on (Alex.). 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 469 

place here. It has been thought improbable that Judas also put the question (Matt. 
5 : 25).* But when all the others were doing it, could he have avoided it without be- 
traying himself ? The thou hast said of Jesus denotes absolutely the same fact as John 
13 : 26 ; " And when He had dipped the sop, He gave it to Judas Iscariot." This 
act itself was the reply which Matthew translates into the words : Thou hast said. 

3. The Conversations After tlie Supper : vers. 24-38. — The conversations which fol- 
low refer : 1st. To a dispute which arises at this moment between the apostles (vers. 
24-30) ; 2d. To the danger which awaits them at the close of this hour of peace (vers. 
31-38). The washing of the feet in John corresponds to the first piece. The predic- 
tion of St. Peter's denial follows in his Gospel, as it does in Luke. According to Mat- 
thew and Mark, it was uttered a little later, after the singing of the hymn. It is quite 
evident that Luke is not dependent on the other Syn., but that he has sources of his 
own, the trustworthiness of which appears on comparison with John's narrative. 

1st. Vers. 24-30. f The cause of the dispute, mentioned by Luke only, cannot have 
been the question of precedence, as Langen thinks. The strife would have broken 
out sooner. The mention of the kingdom of God, vers. 16 and 18, might have given 
rise to it ; but the nai, also, of Luke, suggests another view. By this word he connects 
the question ; Which is tlie greatest ? with that which the disciples had just been«put- 
ting to themselves, ver. 23 : Which among us is he who shall betray Him ? The ques- 
tion which was the worst among them led easily to the other, which was the best of 
all. The one was the counterpart of the other. Whatever else may be true, we see by 
this new example that Luke does not allow himself to mention a situation at his own 
hand of which he finds no indication in his documents. The donel, appears [should 
be accounted], refers to the judgment of men, till the time when God will settle the 
question. Comp. a similar dispute, 9 : 46 et seq. and parall. We are amazed at a dis- 
position so opposed to humility at such a time. But Jesus is no more irritated than 
He is discouraged. It is enough for Him to know that He has succeeded in planting 
in the heart of the apostles a pure principle which will finally carry the day over all 
forms of sin : ' ' Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you, ' ' 
He says to them Himself, John 15 : 3. He therefore calmly continues the work 
which He has begun. In human society, men reign by physical or intellectual force ; 
and evepyirjjg, benefactor, is the flattering title by which men do not blush to honor 
the harshest tyrants. In the new society which Jesus is instituting, he who has most 
is not to make his superiority felt in any other way than by the superabundance of 
his services toward the weakest and the most destitute. The example of Jesus in this 
respect is to remain as the rule. The term 6 veurepos, the younger (ver. 26), is par- 
allel to 6 6ta.KovC)v, he that doth serve, because among the Jews the humblest and hard- 
est labor was committed to the youngest members of the society (Acts 5 : 6, 10). If 
the saying of ver. 27 is not referred to the act of the feet- washing related John 13, 
we must apply the words : I am among you as He that serveth, to the life of Jesus in 
general, or perhaps to the sacrifice which He is now making of Himself (vers. 19 and 
20). But in this way there is no accounting for the antithesis between: "he that 
sitteth at meat," and : " he that serveth." These expressions leave no doubt that the 
fact of the feet-washing was the occasion of this saying. Luke did not know it ; and 

* Our author doubtless intended Matt. 26 : 25.— J. H. 

f Ver. 26. 8. B. D. L. T., yiveoBa instead of yeveoOu. Ver. 30. 8 Mjj. (Byz.) 80 
Mnn. omit ev ttj (3aat?ieia fiov. 8° D. X. 20 Mnn. Syr cur . lt ali< i. add dwdc/ca before 
dpovuv (taken from Matthew). 10 Mjj., KaQijaeaBs or KadijoQe instead of naOcoeode. 



470 COMMENTARY OH ST. LUKE. 

he has confined himself to transmitting the discourse of Jesus as it was furnished to 
him by his document. 

After having thus contrasted the ideal of an altogether new greatness with the so 
different tendency of the natural heart, Jesus proceeds to satisfy what of truth there 
was in the aspiration of the disciples (vers. 28-30). The vfieli 6i, but ye, alludes to 
Judas, who had not 'persevered, and who, by his defection, deprived himself of the mag- 
nificent privilege promised vers. 29 and 30. Perhaps the traitor had not yet gone out, 
and Jesus wished hereby to tell upon his heart. The neipao/Liol, temptations, of which 
Jesus speaks, are summed up in His rejection by His fellow-citizens. It was no small 
thing, on the part of the Eleven, to have persevered in their attachment to Jesus, de- 
spite the hatred and contempt of which he was the object, and the curses heaped 
upon Him by those rulers whom they were accustomed to respect. There is some- 
thing like a feeling of gratitude expressed in the saying of Jesus. Hence the fulness 
with which He displays the riches of the promised reward. Ver. 29 refers to the 
approaching dispensation on the ea*rth : ver. 30, to the heavenly future in which it 
shall issue. 'Ey6, I (ver. 29), is in opposition to vfieig, ye: "That is what ye have 
done for me ; this is what 1 do in my turn (nai) for you." The verb diandevac, to 
dispone, is applied to testamentary dispositions. Bleek takes the object of this verb to 
be the phrase which follows, that ye may eat . . . (ver. 30) ; but there is too close 
a correspondence between appoint and hath appointed unto me, to admit of those two 
verbs having any but the same object, paoileiav, the kingdom : " I appoint unto you 
the kingdom, as my Father hath appointed it unto me." This kingdom is here the 
power exercised by man on man by means of divine life and divine truth. The truth 
and life which Jesus possessed shall come to dwell in them, and thereby they shall 
reign over all, as He Himself has reigned over them. Are not Peter, John, and Paul, 
at the present day, the rulers of the world ? In substance, it is only another form of 
the thought expressed in John 13 : 20 : " Verily I say unto you, He that receiveth 
whomsoever I send, receiveth me ; and he that receiveth me, receiveth Him that sent 
me." Is this an example of the way in which certain sayings of Jesus are transformed 
and spiritualized, as it were, in the memory of John, without being altered from their 
original sense ? At least the obscure connection of this saying in John with what 
precedes is fully explained by Luke's context. 

Ver. 30 might apply solely to the part played by the apostles in the government of 
the primitive Church, and in the moral judgment of Israel then exercised by them. 
But the expression, to eat and drink at my table, passes beyond this meaning. For we 
cannot apply this expression to the Holy Supper, which was no special privilege of 
the apostles. The phrase, in my kingdom, should therefore be taken in the same 
sense as in vers. 16 and 18. With the table where He is now presiding Jesus con- 
trasts the royal banquet, the emblem of complete joy in the perfected kingdom of 
God. He likewise contrasts, in the words following, with the judgments which He 
and His shall soon undergo on the part of Israel, that which Israel shall one day un- 
dergo on the part of the Twelve. According to 1 Cor. 6 : 1 et seq, the Church shall 
judge the world, men and angels. In this judgment of the world by the representa- 
tives of Jesus Christ, the part allotted to the Twelve shall be Israel. Judgment here 
includes government, as so often in the O. T. Thrones are the emblem of power, as 
the table is of joy. If the traitor was yet present, must not such a promise made to 
his colleagues have been like the stroke of a dagger to his ambitious heart ! Here, as 
we think, should be placed the final scene which led to his departure (John 13 : 21-27). 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 471 

It seems to us that the Twelve are not very disadvantageous^ treated in this dis- 
course of Jesus reported by Luke ! * A saying entirely similar is found in Matt. 
19 : 28, in a different context. That of Luke is its own justification. 

2d. Vers. 31-38. Jesus announces to His disciples, first the moral danger which 
threatens them (vers. 31-34) ; then the end of the time of temporal well-being and 
security which they had enjoyed under His protection (vers. 35-38). 

Vers. 31-34. f "And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired 
to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. 32. But I have prayed for thee, that thy 
faith fail not ; and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. 33, 34." The 
warning ver. 31 might be connected with ver, 28 : "Ye are they which have con- 
tinued with me." There would be a contrast : " Here is a temptation in which ye 
shall not continue." But the mention of Satan's part, in respect of the disciples, 
seems to be suggested by the abrupt departure of Judas, in which Satan had played 
a decisive part (John 13 : 27 : " And after the sop, Satan entered into him"). The 
tempter is present ; he has gained the mastery of Judas ; he threatens the other dis- 
ciples also ; he is preparing to attack Jesus Himself. " The prince of this world 
cometh, " says Jesus in John (14 : 30). And the danger to each is in proportion to the 
greater or less amount of alloy which his heart contains. This is the reason why 
Jesus more directly addresses Peter. By the address : Simon, twice repeated, He 
alludes to his natural character, and puts him on his guard against that presumption 
which is its dominant characteristic. The e£ in E^yrrjaaro includes the notion : of 
getting him drawn out of the hands of God into his own. Wheat is purified by 
means of the sieve or fan ; aivi6£,u may apply to either. Satan asks the right of put- 
ting the Twelve to the proof ; and he takes upon himself, over against God, as 
formerly in relation to Job, to prove that at bottom the best among the disciples is 
but a Judas. Jesus by no means says (ver. 32) that his prayer has been refused. 
Rather it appears from the intercession of Jesus that it has been granted. Jesus only 
seeks to parry the consequences of the fall which threatens them all, and which shall 
be especially perilous to Peter. Comp. Matthew and Mark : " All ye shall be 
offended because of me this night." The faithlessness of which they are about to be 
guilty, might have absolutely broken the bond formed between them and Him. 
That of Peter, in particular, might have cast him into the same despair which ruined 
Judas. But while the enemy was spying out the weak side of the disciples to destroy 
them, Jesus was watching and praying to parry the blow, or at least to prevent it 
from being mortal to any of them. Langen explains E-Kiarpi^ii in the sense of y\\y : 
"strengthen thy brethren aneic." But this meaning of enioTptyetv is unknown in 
Greek, and the ttote distinguishes the notion of the participle precisely from that of 
the principal verb4 This saying of Jesus is one of those which lift the curtain 

* The author means by this that the idea of Luke having written his Gospel with 
the view of belittling the Twelve — which he combats, of course, throughout — is absurd 
in the light of this record. — J. H. 

f Ver. 31. B. L. T. omit the words sins '6e o icvpioc. Ver. 32. The mss. are 
divided between ekKel^h and ekmittj, and between arripi^ov and vrripioov. Ver. 34. 
Instead of rcptv rj, &. B. L. T. 4 Mnn. read ewS, K. M. X. IT. 15 Mnn. «jS ov, D. ews 
otov. &. B. L. T. some Mnn., fis cnrapvrjor) sidEvai instead of cnrapvrjori firj Eidsvai [ie. 

% What the " converted" and the " strengthening" — not clearly intimated here — 
are, we may infer from the facts. Peter does not experience a •" second conversion" 
in any true sense of the phrase. He had turned away from his Lord for a time. He 
is turned back again by the Lord's grace and the use of fitting means. The experi- 



472 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

which covers the invisible world from our view. Although it has been preserved to 
us only by Luke, Holtzmann acknowledges its authenticity. He ascribes it to a 
special tradition. That does not prevent him, however, from deriving this whole 
account from the common source, the proto-Mark. But vers. 35-38 are also peculiar 
to Luke, and show clearly that his source was different. 

Peter believes in his fidelity more than in the word of Jesus. Jesus then 
announces to him his approaching fall. The name Peter reminds him of the height 
to which Jesus had raised him. Three crowings of the cock were distinguished ; the 
first between midnight and one o'clock, the second about three, the third between five 
and six. The third watch (from midnight to three o'clock), embraced between the 
first two, was also called alenTopofyuvia, cock-crow (Mark 13 : 35). The saying of 
Jesus in Luke, Matthew, and John would therefore signify: "To-day, before the 
second watch from nine o'clock to midnight have passed, thou shalt have denied me 
thrice." But Mark says, certainly in a way at once more detailed and exact : " Be- 
fore the cock have crowed twice, thou shatl have denied me thrice." That is to say : 
before the end of the third watch, before three o'clock in the morning. The men- 
tion of those two crowings, the first of which should have already been a, warning to 
Peter, perhaps makes the gravity of his sin the more conspicuous. Matthew and 
Mark place the prediction of the denial on the way to Gethsemane. But John con- 
firms the account of Luke, who places it in tfoe supper room. We need not refute 
the opinion of Langen, who thinks that the denial was predicted twice. 

Vers. 35-38.* " And He said unto them, When I sent you without purse and scrip 
and shoes, lacked ye anything ? And they said, Nothing. 36. Then He said unto 
them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip. And he 
that hath no [sword], let him sell his garment, and buy one. 37. Fori say unto 
you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished iu me, and He was reckoned 
among the transgressors : for the things concerning me are coming to an end. . . . 
38." Till then, the apostles, protected by the favor which Jesus enjoyed with the 
people, had led a comparatively easy life. But the last conflict between Him and 
the Jewish authorities was about to break out, and how could the apostles, during all 
the rest of their career, escape the hostile blows ? This is the thought which occu- 
pies our Lord's mind : He gives it a concrete form in the following figures. In ver. 
35 He recalls to mind their first mission (9 : 1, et seq.). We learn on this occasion the 
favorable issue which had been the result of that first proof of their faith. The his- 
torian had told us nothing of it, 9 : 6. The object of firj exav is evidently /xaxaipav 
(not nripav or fialavriov) : " Let him who hath not [a sword], buy one." It heightens 
the previous warning. Not only can they no longer reckon on the kind hospitality 
which they enjoyed during the time of their Master's popularity, and not only must 
they prepare to be treated henceforth like ordinary travellers, paying their way, etc. ; 
but they shall even meet with open hostility. Disciples of a man treated as a wh- 
ence he thus had of Satan's subtle malignity, and of human weakness, prepares him 
to utter and write words of warning and direction to his brethren, on a momentous 
theme, on which Christians think too little. — J. H. 

* Ver. 35. Vers. 35-38 were omitted by Marcion. Ver. 36. Instead of enrev ow, 
& c B. L. T. 4 Mnn. Syr. enrev 6e, &* D. o Se etrcev. Instead of fru^TjaaTo), D. Trufajocu, 
8 Mjj. (Byz.) 115 Mnn. nufyoet ; and instead of ayopaoaru, 9 Mjj. (Byz.), the most of 
the Mnn., ayopaoei. Ver. 37. 9 Mjj. (Alex.) 10 Mnn. omit en after on, ». B, P. L, 
Q. T., to instead of ra after m yap, 



CCLUMEtfTAKY 01* ST. LUKE. 473 

factor, they shall be themselves regarded as dangerous men ; they shall see them- 
selves at war with their fellow-countrymen and the whole world. Comp. John 
15 : 18-25, the piece of which this is, as it were, the summary and parallel. The sword 
is here, as in Matt. 10 : 34, the emblem of avowed hostility. It is clear that in the 
mind of Him who said : ''I send you forth as lambs among wolves," this weapon 
represents the power of holiness in conflict with the sin of the worid — that sward of 
the Spirit spoken of by Paul (Eph. 6 : 17). The nal yap, and in truth, at the end of the 
verse, announces a second fact analogous to the former (and), and which at the same 
time serves to explain it (in truth). The tragical end of the ministrj 7 of Jesus is also 
approaching, and consequently no features of the prophetic description can be 
slow in being realized. The disciples seem to take literally the recommendation 
of Jesus, and even to be proud of their prudence. The words, It is enough, 
have been understood in this sense : " Let us say no more ; let us now break 
up ; events will explain to you my mind, which you do not understand." But is it 
not more natural to give to Uavov kart this mournfully ironic sense : " Yes, for the 
use which you shall have to make of arms of this kind, those two swords are enough." 
Here we must place the last words of John 14 : " Rise ; let us go hence." The Syn. 
have preserved only a few hints of the last discourses of Jesus (John 14 : 17). These 
were treasures which could not be transmitted to the Church in the way of oral tra- 
dition, and which, assuming hearers already formed in the school of Jesus like the 
apostles, were not fitted to form the matter of popular evangelization. 

III. Gethsemane : 22 : 39-46. — The Lamb of God must be distinguished from 
typical victims by His free acceptance of death as the punishment of sin ; and hence 
there required to be in His life a decisive moment when, in the fulness of His con- 
sciousness and liberty, He should accept the punishment which He was to undergo. 
At Gethsemane Jesus did not drink the cup ; He consented to drink it. This point 
of time corresponds to that in which, with the same fulness and liberty, He refused 
in the wilderness universal sovereignty. There He rejected dominion over us without 
God ; here He accepts death for God and for us. Each evangelist has some special 
detail which attests the independence of his sources. Matthew exhibits specially the 
gradation of the agony and the progress toward acceptance. Mark has preserved to 
us this saying of primary importance : " Abba ! Father ! all things are possible unto 
Thee." Luke describes more specially the extraordinary physical effects of this 
moral agouy. His account is, besides, very much abridged. John omits the whole 
scene, but not without expressly indicating its place (18 : 1). In the remarkable piece, 
12 : 23-28, this evangelist had already unveiled the essence of the struggle which was 
beginning in the heart of Jesus ; and the passage proves sufficiently, in spite of Keim's 
peremptory assertions, that there is no dogmatic intention in the omission of the 
agony of Gethsemane. When the facts are sufficiently known, John confines himself 
to communicating some saying of Jesus which enables us to understand their spirit. 
Thus it is that chap. 3 sheds light on the ordinance of Baptism, and chap. 6 on 
that of the Holy Supper.* Heb. 5 : 7-9 contains a very evident allusion to the ac- 

* They may " shed light," but that they, when uttered, referred to these ordi- 
nances is not yet proved. Why say to Nicodemus, " Art thou a master," etc., if the 
Lord referred to a rite not yet instituted V But if our Lord referred to such passages 
as Ezek. 36 : 25, 26, the ignorance of Nicodemus was inexcusable. Even so the whole 
of the conversation in John 6 relates to the miracle of the manna, the words of the 
Jews drawing out those of our Lord. What force could there be in his repeated 



474 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

count of Gethsemane— a fact the more remarkable, as that epistle is one of those 
which, at the same time, most forcibly exhibit the divinity of Jesus. 

Vers. 39-46.* The word came out (ver. 39) includes His leaving the room and the 
city. The name, the Mount of Olives, which is used here by our three Syn., may des- 
ignate in a wide sense the slope and even the foot of the mount which begins imme- 
diately beyond the Cedron. This is the sense to which we are led by John's account, 
18 : 1. The north-west angle of the inclosure, which is now pointed out as the garden 
of Gethsemane, is fifty paces from the bed of the torrent. Ver. 40. Jesus invites 
His disciples to prepare by prayer for the trial which threatens their fidelity, and of 
which He has already forewarned them (ver. 31). The use of the word eloe/iQelv, 
enter into, to signify to yield to, is easily understood, if we contrast this verb in 
thought with SleIQeIv, to pass through. In Matthew and Mark, Jesus has no sooner 
arrived than He announces to His disciples His intention to pray Himself. Then, 
withdrawing a little with Peter, James, and John, He tells them of the agony with 
which His soul is all at once seized, and leaves them, that He may pray alone. 
These successive moments are all united in Luke in the aneoTrdodij, He was with- 
drawn (ver. 41). There is in this term, notwithstanding Bleek's opinion, the 
idea of some violence to which He is subject ; He is dragged far from the disciples 
by anguish (Acts. 21 : 1). The expression, to the distance of about a stone's cast, is 
peculiar to Luke. Instead of kneeling down, Matthew says, He fell upon His face ; 
Mark, upon the ground. The terms of Jesus' prayer, ver. 43, differ in the three nar- 
ratives, and in such a way that it is impossible the evangelists could have so mod- 
ified them at their own hand. But the figure of the cup is common to all three ; it 
was indelibly impressed on tradition. This cup which Jesus entreats God to cause to 
pass from before (napd) His lips, is the symbol of that terrible punishment the dread- 
ful and mournful picture of which is traced before Him at this moment by a skilful 
painter with extraordinary vividness. The painter is the same who in the wilder- 
ness, using a like illusion, passed before His view the magical scene of the glories be- 
longing to the Messianic kingdom. 

Mark's formula is distinguished by the invocation, " Abba ! Father ! all things 
are possible unto Thee," in which the translation 6 n-a-Tjp, Father, has been added by 
the evangelist for his Greek readers. It is a last appeal at once to the fatherly love 
and omnipotence of God. Jesus does not for a moment give up the work of human 
salvation ; He asks only if the cross is really the indispensable means of gaining this 
end. Cannot God in His unlimited power find another way of reconciliation? 
Jesus thus required, even He, to obey without understanding, to walk by faith. 

rejoinders if the reference was to an ordinance of which the hearers could know abso- 
lutely nothing— for it had not yet been appointed V The assumption that these two 
chapters relate to the sacraments of the Christian Church has done no little evil. 
There is abundant reason for both communications in the known history and 
prophecy of the Old Testament. — J. H. 

* Ver. 39. 6 Mjj. some Mnn. omit avrov after fiadrjTai. Ver. 42. The mss. are 
divided between irapeveyiceiv (T. R., Byz.), napeveyicai (Alex.), and ■KapeveyKi (B. D. T. 25 
Mnn.). Vers. 43, 44. These two verses, which T. R. reads, with 8* etc . D. F. G. H. 
K. L. M. Q. (J. X. A. the most of the Mnn. Syr. It. Just. Ir. Dion. al. Ar. Chrys. 
Eus., are wanting in & a A. B. R. T. 3 Mnn. Sah. Cyr., in several Greek and Latin 
mss. quoted by Hilary, Epiph., Jer. They are marked with signs of doubt in E. S. 
V. A. n. 5 Mnn. &. X. some Mnn. Vss., Kara/3aivovToc instead of KdTafiacvovTeS. Ver. 
45. All the Mjj, omit avrov after /LtaQTjrai. 



COMMENTAKY OK ST. LUKE. 475 

Hence the expressions, Heb. 5:8, He learned obedience, and 12 : 2, apxvyoS rrji 
tziotscjS, He who leads the way (the initiator) of faith. Yet this prayer does not imply 
the least feeling of revolt ; for Jesus is ready to accept the Father's answer, what- 
ever it may be. What if nature rises within Him against this punishment ? this re- 
pugnance is legitimate. It was not with the view of suffering thus that man re- 
ceived from God a body and a soul. This resistance of natural instinct to the will 
of the Spirit — that is to say, to the consciousness of a mission — is exactly what makes 
it possible for nature to become a real victim, an offering in earnest. So long as the 
voice of nature is at one with that of God, it may be asked, Where is the victim for the 
burnt-offering f Sacrifice begins where conflict begins. But, at the same time, the 
holiness of Jesus emerges pure and even perfected from this struggle. Under the 
most violent pressure, the will of nature did not for a single moment escape from 
the law of the Spirit, and ended after a time of struggle in being entirely absorbed in 
it. Luke, like Mark, gives only the first prayer, and confines himself to indicating 
the others summarily, while Matthew introduces us more profoundly to the progres- 
sive steps in the submission of Jesus (ver. 42). How much more really human do our 
Gospels make Jesus than our ordinary dogmatics ! It is not thus that the work of in- 
vention would have been carried out by a tradition which aimed at deifying Jesus. 

The appearance of the angel, ver. 43, is mentioned only by Luke. No doubt 
this verse is wanting in some Alex. But it is found in 13 Mjj. and in the two oldest 
translations (Itala and Peschito), and this particular is cited so early as the second 
century by Justin and Irenseus. It is not very probable that it would have been 
addecl. It is more so that, under the influence of the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity, 
it was omitted on the pretext that it was not found either in Matthew or Mark. Bleek, 
while fully acknowledging the authenticity of the verse, thinks that this particular 
was wanting in the primitive Gospel, and that it was introduced by Luke on the faith 
of a later tradition. Schleiermacher supposes the existence of a poetical writing in 
which the moral suffering of the Saviour was celebrated, and from which the two 
vers. 43 and 44 were taken. But tradition, poetry, and myths tend rather to glorify 
their hero than to impair -his honor. The difficulty which orthodoxy finds in ac- 
counting for such particulars makes it hard to suppose that it was their inventor. 
This appearance was not only intended to bring spiritual consolation to Jesus, but 
physical assistance still more, as in the wilderness. The saying uttered by Him an 
instant before was no figure of rhetoric : ' ' My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto 
death." As when in the wilderness under the pressure of famine, He felt himself 
dying. The presence of this heavenly being sends a vivifying breath over Him. A 
, divine refreshing pervades Him, body and soul ; and it is thus only that He receives 
strength to continue to the last the struggle to the physical violence of which He was 
on the very point of giving way. Ver. 44 shows to what physical prostration Jesus 
was reduced. This verse is omitted on the one hand, and supported on the other, by 
the same authorities as the preceding. Is this omission the result of the preceding, or 
perhaps the consequence of confounding the two icai at the beginning of vers. 44 and 
45 ? In either case, there appears to have been here again omission rather than inter- 
polation. The intensity of the struggle becomes so great that it issues in a sort of 
beginninjg of physical dissolution. The words, as it were drops, express more than a 
simple comparison between the density of the sweat and that of blood. The words 
denote that the sweat itself resembled blood. Phenomena of frequent occurrence 
demonstrate how immediately the blood, the seat of life, is under the empire of moral 



476 COMMENTARY 02* ST. LUKE. 

impressions. Does not a feeling of shame cause the blood to rise to the face ? Cases 
are known in which the blood, violently agitated by grief, ends by penetrating 
through the vessels which inclose it, and driven outward, escapes with the sweat 
through the transpiratory glands.* The reading Karaf3aivovToi, in & and some docu- 
ments of the Itala, though admitted by Tischendorf, has no internal probability. 
The participle ought to qualify the principal substantive rather than the complement. 
The disciples themselves might easily remark this appearance when Jesus awoke them, 
for the full moon was lighting up the garden. They might also hear the first words 
of Jesus' prayer, for they did not fall asleep immediately, but only, as at the transfig- 
uration (9 : 32), when His prayer was prolonged. Jesus had previously experienced 
some symptoms precursive of a struggle like to this (12 : 49, 50 ; John 12 : 27). But 
this time the anguish is such that it is impossible not to recognize the intervention of 
a supernatural agent. Satan had just invaded the circle of the Twelve by taking pos- 
session of the heart of Judas. He was about to sift all the other disciples. Jesus 
Himself at this time was subjected to his action : " This is the power of darkness," 
says He, ver. 53. In the words which close his account of the temptation (4 : 13), 
Luke had expressly declared, "He departed from Him till a favorable season/' the 
return of the tempter at a fixed conjuncture. 

Vers. 45 and 46. Luke unites the three awakings in one. Then he seeks to 
explain this mysterious slumber which masters the disciples, and he does so in the 
way most favorable to them. The cause was not indifference, but rather the prostra- 
tion of grief. It is well known that deep grief, especially after a period of long and 
keen tension, disposes to slumber through sheer exhaustion. Nothing could be more 
opposed than this explanation to the hostile feelings toward the disciples which are 
ascribed to Luke, and all the more that this particular is entirely peculiar to him. 
Ver. 46. Jesus rises from this struggle delivered from His fear, as says the epistle to 
the Hebrews ; that is to say, in possession of the profound calm which perfect sub- 
mission gives to the soul. The punishment has not changed its nature, it is true ; 
but the impression which the expectation of the cross produces on Jesus is no longer 
the same. He has given Himself up wholly ; He has done what He Himself pro- 
claimed before passing the Cedron : " For their sakes I sanctify myself" (John 
17 : 19) The acceptance of the sacrifice enables Him to feel beforehand the rest be- 
longing to the completion of the sacrifice. Henceforth He walks with a firm step to 
meet that cross the sight of which an instant before made Him stagger. 



second cycle.— chap. 22 : 47—23 : 46. 

The Passion. 

The death of Jesus is not simply, in the eyes of the evangelists, and according to 
the sayings which they put into His mouth, the historical result of the conflict which 
arose between Him and the theocratic authorities. What happens to Him is that 
which has been determined (22 : 22). Thus it must be (Matt. 26 : 54). He Himself 
sought for a time to struggle against this mysterious necessity by having recourse to 
that infinite possibility which is inseparable from divine liberty (Mark 14 : 36). But 
the burden has fallen on Him with all its weight, and He is now charged with it. He 

* See Langen, pp. 212-214. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 477 

dies for the remission of the sins of the world (Matt. 26 : 28). The dogmatic system of 
the apostles contains substantially nothing more. Only it is natural that in the Epistles 
the divine plan should be more prominent ; in the Gospels, the action of the human 
factors. The two points of view complete one another : God acts by means of his- 
tory, and history is the realization of the divine thought. 

This cycle embraces the accounts of the arrest of Jesus (22 : 47-53) ; of His two- 
fold trial, ecclesiastical and civil (ver. 54 : 23, 25) ; of His crucifixion (vers. 26-46). 

1. The Arrest of Jesus: 22 : 47-53. — Three things are included in this piece : 1st. 
The kiss of Judas (vers. 47 and 48) ; 2d. The disciples' attempt at defence (vers. 
49-51) ; 3d. The rebuke which Jesus administers to those who come to take Him 
(vers. 52 and 53). 

Vers. 47 and 48.* The sign which Judas had arranged with the band had for its 
object to prevent Jesus from escaping should one ot His disciples be seized in His 
stead. In the choice of the sign in itself, as Langen remarks, there was no refinement 
of hypocrisy. The kiss was the usual form of salutation, especially between disciples 
and their master. The object of this salutation is not mentioned by Luke ; it was 
understood. We see from John that the fearless attitude of Jesus, who advanced 
spontaneously in front of the band, rendered this signal superfluous and almost 
ridiculous. The saying of Jesus to Judas, ver. 48, is somewhat differently repro- 
duced in Matthew ; it is omitted in Mark. In memory of this kiss, the primitive 
Church suppressed the ceremony of the brotherly kiss on Good Friday. The sole 
object of the scene which follows in John (the 1 am He of Jesus, with its conse- 
quences) was to prevent a disciple from being arrested at the same time. 

Vers. 49-51. f The Syn. name neither the disciple who strikes, nor the servant 
struck. John gives the names of both. So long as the Sanhedrim yet enjoyed its 
authority, prudence forbade the giving of Peter's name here in the oral narrative. 
But after his death and the destruction of Jerusalem, John was no longer restrained 
by the same fears. As to the name of Malchus, it was only preserved in the memory 
of that disciple who, well known in the house of the high priest, knew the man per- 
sonally. What are we to think qf the author of the fourth Gospel, if these proper 
names were mere fictions ? According to ver. 49, the disciple who struck acted in 
the name of all {166vte$ . . . elnov, shall we smite?). This particular, peculiar to 
Luke, extenuates Peter's guilt. John says, with Luke: "the right ear." This 
minute coincidence shows that the details peculiar to Luke are neither legendary nor 
the inventions of his own imagination. The words sute ews tovtov supply in Luke 
the place of a long and important answer of Jesus in Matthew. Should this com- 
mand be applied to the officers : " Let me goto this man" (Paulus) ; or " to the spot 
where this man is ?" But this would have required sure /ue, " let me go." Or should 
we understand it, with De Wette, Riggenbach : " Leave me yet for a moment" ? 
The £ws, till, does not lead very naturally to this sense. Besides, the cnroKpideiS, answer- 
ing, shows that the words of Jesus are connected with the act of the disciple rather 
than with the arrival of the officers. It is not till ver. 52 that Jesus turns to those who 
have arrived (npbs rovg irapayevonevovs). Here He is addressing the apostles. The 

* Ver. 47. 12 Mjj. 15 Mnn. omit Se after eti. All the Mjj., avrov? (2, avzoiS) 
instead of avzoov. D. E. H. X. 60 Mnn. Syr ach . It ali< i. add after avrov, vovro yap 
drj/usiov SeSgohei avroiZ, ov av g)iA^6co avroS sdtiv (taken from the parallels). 

f Marciou omitted this passage. Ver. 49. &. B. L. T. X. some Mnn. omit avroa 
before nvpie. Ver. 51. & B. L. R. T. 2 Mnn. omit avrov after oonov. 



478 COMMENTARY Otf ST. LUKE. 

meaning is therefore either, " Let these men (the officers) go thus far (the length of seiz- 
ing me)," or (which is more natural), " Stop there ; strike no such second blow ; this 
one is quite enough." This act of violence, indeed, not only compromised the safety 
of Peter, but even the Lord's cause. Jesus was all but hindered thereby from address- 
ing Pilate in the words so important for His defence against the crime with which the 
Jews charged Him (John 18 : 36) : " My kingdom is not of this world ; if my king- 
dom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered 
to the Jews." Nothing less was needed than the immediate cure of Malchus to re- 
store the moral situation which had been injured by this trespass, and to enable Jesus 
to express Himself without the risk of being confounded by facts. This cure is relat- 
ed only by Luke ; Meyer therefore relegates it to the domain of myth. But if it had 
not taken place, it would be impossible to understand how Peter and Jesus Himself 
had escaped from this complaint. 

Vers. 52 and 53.* Among those who came out, Luke numbers some of the chief 
priests. Whatever Meyer and Bleek may say, such men may surely, out of hatred or 
curiosity, have accompanied the band charged with the arrest. Besides, is not the 
rebuke which follows addressed rather to rulers than to subordinates ? As to the 
captains of the temple, see 22 : 4. As to the officers, comp. John 7 : 45 ; Acts 5 : 22-26 
John speaks, besides, of the cohort, 18 : 3, 12 ; this word, especially when accompa- 
nied by the term x^tapxog, tribune, (ver. 12), and with the antithesis tuv 'lovdaiuv, can 
only, in spite of all Baumlein's objections, designate a detachment of the Roman 
cohort ; it was, as Langen remarks, an article of provincial legislation, that no arrest 
should take place without the intervention of the Romans. The meaning of the 
rebuke of Jesus is this : " It was from cowardice that you did not arrest me in the 
full light of day." The other two Syn. carry forward their narrative, like Luke with 
a but ; only this but is with them the necessity for the fulfilment of the prophecies, 
while with Luke it is the harmony between the character of the deed and that of the 
nocturnal hour. Darkness is favorable to crime ; for man needs to be concealed not 
only from others, but from himself, in order to sin. For this reason, night is the 
time when Satan puts forth all his power over humanity ; it is his hour. And hence, 
adds Jesus, it is also yours, for you are his instruments in the work which you are 
doing ; comp. John 8 : 44, 14 : 30. Luke omits the fact of the apostles' flight which 
is related here by Matthew and Mark. Where is the malevolence which is ascribed 
to him against the Twelve ? Mark also relates with great circumstantiality, the case 
of the young man who fled stripped of the linen cloth in which he was wrapped. 
As, according to Acts 12, the mother of Mark possessed a house in Jerusalem — as 
this house was the place where the Church gathered in times of persecution, and as 
it was therefore probably situated in a by-place — it is not impossible that it stood in 
the vale of Gethsemane, and that this young man was (as has long been supposed) 
Mark himself, drawn by the noise of the band, and who has thus put his signature 
as modestly as possible in the corner of the evangelical narrative which he composed. 

2. The Judgment of Jesus : 22 : 54—23 : 25. 

1st. The Ecclesiastical Trial: vers. 54-71. — This account contains three things : (1) 
St. Peter's denial (vers. 54-62) ; (2) The evil treatment practised by the Jews (vers. 
63-65) ; (3) The sentence of death pronounced by the Sanhedrim (vers. 66-71). 

* Ver. 52. &. G. H. R. A. 50 Mnn., npoS avrov instead of en f avrov. The MSS. are 
divided between E&ArjAvQare (T. R., Byz,), efyMare (Alex.), and e^Were. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 479 

Luke places the sitting of the Sanhedrim at which Jesus was condemned in the 
morning, when the day dawned (ver. 66). This morning sitting is also mentioned by 
Matthew (27 : 1, the morning was come) and Mark (15 : 1, straightway in the morning). 
But, according to those two evangelists, a previous sitting had taken place at the 
house of Caiaphas during the night, of which ihey give a detailed description (Matt. 
26 . 57-66 ; Mark 14 : 53-64). And this even, according to John, had been preceded 
by a preparatory sitting at the house of Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas. John 
does not relate either the second or the third sitting, though he expressly indicates the 
place of the latter by the irptirov, 18 : 13, and the notice, 18 : 24. This, then, is the 
order of events : Immediately on His arrest, between one and three o'clock, Jesus 
was led to the house of Annas, where a preliminary inquiry took place, intended to 
extract beforehand some saying which would serve as a text for His- condemnation 
(John 18 : 19-23). This sitting having terminated without any positive result, had not 
been taken up by tradition, and was omitted by the Syn. But John relates it to 
complete the view of the trial of Jesus, and with regard to the account of Peter's de- 
nial, which he wishes to restore to its true light. During this examination, the mem- 
bers of the Sanhedrim had been called together in haste, in as large numbers as possi- 
ble, to the house of the high priest. The sitting of this body which followed was 
that at which Jesus was condemned to death for having declared Himself to be the 
Son of God. It must have taken place about three o'clock in the morning. Mat- 
thew (26 : 59, et seq.) and Mark (14 : 55, et seq.) have minutely described it. John has 
omitted it, as sufficiently known through them. In the morning, at daybreak, the 
Sanhedrim assembled anew, this time in full muster, and in their official hall near the 
temple. This is the sitting described by Luke, and briefly indicated, as we have 
seen, by Matthew and Mark. Two things rendered it necessary : (1) According to a 
Rabbinical law, no sentence of death passed during the night was valid.* To this 
formal reason there was probably added the circumstance that the sentence had not 
been passed in the official place. But especially (2) it was necessary to deliberate 
seriously on the ways and means by which to obtain from the Roman governor the 
confirmation and execution of their sentence. The whole negotiation with Pilate 
which follows shows that the thing was far from easy, and betrays on the part of the 
Jews, as we have seen in our " Comment, sur l'evang. de Jean," a strategical plan 
completely marked out beforehand. It was no doubt at this morning sitting that the 
plan was discussed and adopted. Matthew also says, in speaking of this last sitting 
(27 : 1), that they took counsel ticre Qavarucat avrov, about the icay of getting Him put 
to death. Then it was that Judas came to restore his money to the Sanhedrim in the 
temple (ev t£> va£>, Matt. 27 : 5). 

Bleek admits only two sittings in all — the one preliminary, which was held at the 
house of Annas (John), and during which Peter's denial took place ; the other official, 
decisive, in which the whole Sanhedrim took part, related by the Syn., who errone- 
ously connect Peter's denial with it, and which is divided also erroneously by Mat- 
thew and Mark into two distinct sittings. Langen, on the contrary, with many com- 
mentators, identifies .the examination before Annas (John 18 : 13, 19-23) with the 
nocturnal sitting which is described in detail by Matthew and Mark. Against this 

* " Sanhedrim," 9. 1. Langen objects .that, according to this same passage, the pro- 
nouncing of sentence should have been deferred till the second day. But it was 
easier to elude this second law than the former. It was possible, for graver reasons, 
to decree urgency. 



480 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

explanation there are : 1. The entire difference between the matter of the two sit- 
tings ; in John, a simple examination without judgment ; in Matthew and Mark, the 
express pronouncing of a capital sentence ; 2. Ver. 24 of John, " Annas sent Jesus 
bound to Caiaphas" — a verse which, whatever maybe made of it, implies two sittings, 
the one at the house of Annas, the other at the house of Caiaphas, in the same night. 
The opinion of Bleek would be more allowable. But we should be authorized in 
ascribing to the first two Syn. the serious confusion, and then the false division, 
which Bleek imputes to them, only if the two sittings of the night and morning could 
not be sufficiently accounted for. Now, we have just seen that it is quite otherwise. 
A minute particular which distinguishes them confirms their historical reality ; in 
the night sitting there had been unanimity (Mark 14 : 64). Now, if Luke is not mis- 
taken in declaring, 23 : 51, that Joseph of Arimathea did not vote with the majority, 
we must conclude that he was not present at the night sitting at the house of Caia- 
phas, but that he took part only in that of the morning in the temple, which agrees 
with the fact that Matthew (27 : 1) expressly distinguishes the morning assembly 
as a plenary court, by the adjective ndvres, all. The two sittings are thus really dis- 
tinct. Luke has mentioned only the last, that of the morning, perhaps because it was 
only the sentence pronounced then for the second time which had legal force, and 
which therefore was the only one mentioned by his sources. 

(1.) Vers. 54-62.* Peter's Denial. — The account of the evangelists presents 
insoluble difficulties, if Annas and Caiaphas dwelt in different houses. Indeed, ac- 
cording to Matthew and Mark, who do not mention the examination before Annas, 
it is at the house of Caiaphas that the denial must have taken place ; while according 
to John, who does not relate the sitting at the house of Caiaphas, it is at the house of 
Annas that this scene must have occurred. But is it impossible, or even improbable, 
that Annas and Caiaphas his son-in-law occupied the sacerdotal palace in common ? 
Annas and Caiaphas, high priests, the one till the year 14, the other from the year 17, 
were so identified in popular opinion that Luke (3 : 2) mentions them as exercising 
one and the same pontificate in common — the one as titulary high priest, the other as 
high priest de facto. So Acts 4:6: Annas the high priest and Caiaphas. \ But there 
is more than a possibility or a probability. There is a fact : in John 18 : 15, the 
entrance of Peter into the palace where the denial took place is explained on the 
ground that John was known to the high priest, a title which in this context (vers. 
13 and 24) can designate no other than Caiaphas ; and yet, according to ver. 12, it is 
the house of Annas which is in question. How are we to explain this account, if 
Annas and Caiaphas did not inhabit the same house ? There is caution in the way in 
which Luke expresses himself : "*They led Him into the high priest's house;" he does 

* Ver. 54. 10 Mjj. 30 Mnn. It. Vg. omit avrov after eioqyayov. 7 Mjj. 10 Mnn., 
ttjv oiKiav instead of tov olkov. Ver. 55. &. B. L. T., nepiaipavruv instead of aifjavruv. 
7 Mjj. ItP leri< i ue , omit avTuv after ovynaQioavTuv. B. L. T. 2 Mnn., fieooS instead of 
ev fieou. Ver. 57. 9 Mjj. 40 Mnn. Syr. ItP leri i ue , omit avrov after fipv-qaaro. Ver. 58. 
7 Mjj. 15 Mnn., e<pri instead of einev. Ver. 60. &. D. It. Vg., tc 2-eyeiS instead of 
o Xeyets. All the Mjj. many Mnn. omit o before aleicTup. Ver. 61. J*. B. L. T. X. 
some Mnn., instead of tov loyov, tov prj/xarog (taken from Matthew and Mark). 8 Mjj. 
25 Mnn. read a-nfxepov before aizapvriarj. Ver. 62. 9 Mjj. 50 Mnn. Syr cur . omit o 
HerpoS after s$u. 

t In this passage, the name High Priest is used in the general sense which it has 
throughout the N. T., and Annas is named at the head of the list as president of the 
Banhedrim. 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 481 

not say, to the house of Caiaphas (Matthew), or to the presence of tlie high priest 
(Mark), but to the sacerdotal palace, where dwelt the two high priests closely united 
and related. 

A covered gateway (nvluv) led from without into the court where the fire was 
lighted {avTijj). The first denial is related by John in a way to show that it took place 
during the appearance before Annas. Comp. the repetition 18 : 18 and 25, which is 
indirectly intended to show that the denial was simultaneous with that first sitting. 
The other two denials being placed by John after the sitting, took place conse- 
quently between the appearance at the house of Annas and the sitting of the Sanhe- 
drim at the house of Caiaphas. After his first sin, Peter, humbled, and, as it were, 
afraid of himself, had withdrawn to the gateway (ttvTluv, Matthew), or to the outer court 
(irpoavliov, Mark), situated before the gateway. There, though more secluded, he is 
the object of petty persecution on the part of the porteress who had let him in (Mark), 
of another female servant (Matthew), of another individual (erepos, Luke), of the 
bystanders in general (elnov, they said, John). The accusation began probably with the 
porteress, who knew his intimate connection with John ; she betrayed him to another 
servant ; and the latter pointed him out to the domestics. Finally, about an hour 
later (Luke), a kinsman of Malchus (John) recognizes him, and engages him in a con- 
versation. Peter's answer makes him known as a Galilean, and consequently as a 
disciple of Jesus. And the third denial takes place ; the cock crows (Matthew, Luke, 
John) for the second time (Mark). Then Peter, awaking as from a dream, at the 
moment when he lifts his head, meet3 the eye of Jesus (Luke). How could the Lord 
be there ? It was the time when, after the examination before Annas, they were 
leading Him to the sitting of the Sanhedrim before Caiaphas. He was just crossing 
the court which divided the two sets of apartments ; and this is what John means to 
express by introducing here the remark, 18 : 24 : " Now Annas had sent Him bound 
to Caiaphas." We can understand the profound effect produced upon the disciple 
by the sight of his Master bound, and the look which He gave him in passing. Mark 
omits this particular ; Peter was not likely to relate it in his preaching. Mark merely 
says : hmftakuv It&aie (the imperfect), hurrying forth, he wept, went on weeping with- 
out ceasing. The other Gospels simply use the aor. he wept. Then it was that he 
was preserved from despair and its consequences by the intercession of his Master : 
" I have prayed for thee . . ." The answer to the prayer of Jesus was given 
partly by this look — a look of pardon as well as of rebuke, which raised the poor dis* 
ciple, while breaking his heart with contrition. It was thereby that God sustained 
his faith, and prevented him from falling into a state similar to that of Judas. 

We recognize in the three Syn. accounts the characteristic of traditional narrative 
in their combining the three denials in a single description ; it was the anoiivr)fi6vevfj.a, 
tlie recital, of the denial. John, as an eye-witness, has given the historical fact its 
natural divisions. But notwithstanding their common type, each Syn. account has 
also its delicate shades and special features, rendering it impossible to derive it from 
the same written source as the other two. Matthew is the writer who best exhibits 
the gradation of the three denials (as in Gethsemane that of the three prayers of 
Jesus). 

(2.) Vers. 63-65.* The evil treatment mentioned here is the same as that related 

* Ver. 63. 7 Mjj. some Mnn. It. Vg., avvov instead of rov Ir)6ovv. Ver. 64. &. 
B. K. L. M. T. II., TtEpiKccXvipavTES avvov instead of nepix. avr. ervitrov avr. r. 
itpo6. xai. 7 Mjj. omit avzov after enr/pGOTcov* 



483 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

by Matthew and Mark, and placed by them after the sitting of the Sanhedrim at the 
house of Caiaphas. It is the parody of the prophetic knowledge of Jesus, the ridicule 
of the Jews. We shall afterward see the derision of the Gentiles. 

(3.) Vers. 66-71.* The Morning Sitting. — It is impossible to determine to what 
extent the Sanhedrim required to repeat in their morning sitting what had passed in 
the night one. But we are justified in allowing that some details of the one were ap- 
plied to the other by tradition and by our evangelists. There was nothing in itself 
basphemous in one calling himself the Christ. This claim, even if it was false, was 
not an outrage on the honor of God. If the assertions of Jesus regarding His person 
appeared in the judgment of the Jews to be blasphemy, it was because in His mouth 
the title Son of God always signified something else and something more than that of 
Messiah, and because the latter was in His lips only a corollary from the former. In 
proportion to the care with which Jesus in His ministry had avoided making His 
Messiahship the subject of His public declarations, He had pointedly designated 
Himself as the Son of God. Hence, in the sitting described by Matthew and Mark, 
the high priest, when putting to Him the question : " Art thou the Christ?" takes 
care to add : " the Son of God ?*' well knowing that the first assertion cannot be the 
foundation of a capital charge, unless it be again completed and explained as it had 
always been in the teaching of Jesus by the second. The question of ver. 67, in 
Luke, was simply, on the part of the high priest, the introduction to the examination 
(comp. ver. 70). But Jesus, wishing to hasten a decision which He knew to be 
already taken, boldly and spontaneously passes in His answer beyond the strict con- 
tents of the question, and declares Himself not only the Messiah, but at the same 
time the Son of man sharing the divine glory. The particle el (ver. 67) may be taken 
interrogatively: "Art thou the Christ? Tell us so in that case." But it is more 
natural to make it directly dependent on elire : " Tell us if thou art . . 1" De 
Wette has criticised the answer here ascribed to Jesus (vers. 67 and 68). The second 
alternative : If 1 ask you, appears to him out of place in the mouth of an accused 
person. It is not so. Here is the position, as brought out by the answer of Jesus : 
" I cannot address you either as judges whom I am seeking to convince, for ydu are 
already determined to put no faith in my declarations, nor as disciples whom I am 
endeavoring to instruct, for you would not enter into a fair discussion with me." 
Had he not questioned them once and again previously on the origin of John's bap- 
tism, and on the meaning of Ps. 110 ? And they had steadily maintained a prudent 
silence ! Jesus foresees the same result, if He should now enter into discussion with 
them. The last words : rj a-KoXvarirz, nor let me go, are perplexing, because, while 
grammatically connected with the second alternative, they refer in sense to both. 
Either, with the Alex., they must be rejected, or they must be taken as a climax : 
" Nor far less still will ye let me go." 

Ver. 69. Jesus Himself thus furnishes the Jews with the hold which they seek. 
The name Son of Man, which He uses as most directly connected with that of Christ 
(ver. 67), is qualified by a description implying that He who bears this title partici- 
pates in the divine state. Thereby the trial became, singularly shortened. There 
was no occasion searchingly to examine the right of Jesus to the title of Christ. The 

* Ver. 66. &. B. D. K. T. 25 Mnn. Or., aitriyayov instead of avqyayov. &. 
B. L. T., entov instead of snte. Ver. 68. J*. B. L. T. omit uai after ear 6e. &. B. 
L. T. omit the words juoi rj a7toXv6r/TE, Ver. 69. 7 Mjj. ItP leri< i ue , Vg. add tie after 
yvv. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 483 

claim to divine glory contained in this assertion of Jesus is immediately formulated 
by the tribunal in the title Son of God. It only remains to have the blasphemy artic- 
ulately stated by the -culprit Himself. Hence the collective question, ver. 70. The 
form : ye say that 1 am, thou sayest it, is not used in Greek ; but it is frequentl}' used 
in Rabbinical language.* By such an answer the party accepts as His own affirma- 
tion, the whole contents of the question put to Him. So far, therefore, from this 
question proving, as is persistently affirmed, that the name Son of God is equivalent 
in the view of the Jews, or in that of Jesus, to the name Christ, the evident progress 
from the question of ver. 67 to that of ver. 70, brought about by the decided answer 
of Jesus, ver. 69, clearly proves the difference between the two terms. As to the 
difference between the night sitting and that of the morning, it was not considerable. 
In the second, the steps were only more summary, and led more quickly to the end. 
All that was necessary was to ratify officially what had been done during the night. 
As Keim says, ' ' the Sanhedrim had not to discuss ; they had merely to approve and 
confirm the decision come to over-night." In the opinion of those who allege that 
Jesus was crucified on the afternoon of the loth, and not of the 14th, the arrest of 
Jesus, and the three judicial sessions which followed, took place in the night between 
the*- 14th and 15th, and so on the sabbatic holy day. Is that admissible ? Langeii 
remarks that on the 15th Nisan food might be prepared, which was forbidden on a 
Sabbath (Ex. 12 : 16). But there is no proof that this exception extended to other 
acts of ordinary life (arrests, judgments, punishments, etc.). He seeks, further, to 
prove that what was forbidden on a sabbatic day was not to pronounce a sentence, 
but merely to write and execute it. Now, he says, there is no proof that the sentence 
of Jesu3 was written ; and it was Roman soldiers, not subject to the law, by whom 
it was executed. These replies are ingenious ; but after all, the objection taken 
from the general sabbatic character of the 15th Nisan remains in all its force. 

2d. The Civil Judgment : 23 : 1-25. — Here we have the description, on the one 
hand, of the series of manoeuvres used by the Jews to obtain from Pilate the execution 
of the sentence, and on the other, of the series of Pilate's expedients, or counter- 
manoeuvres, to get rid of the case which was forced on him. He knew that it was 
out of envy that the chiefs among the Jews were delivering Jesus over to him (Matt. 
27 : 18 ; Mark 15 : 10), and he felt repugnance at lending his power to a judicial mur- 
der. Besides, he felt a secret fear about Jesus. Comp. John 19 : 8, where it is 
said : " When Pilate therefore heard that saying (' He made Himself the Son of 
God'), he was the more afraid ;" and the question, ver. 9 : Whence art tlwut — a 
question which cannot refer to the earthly birthplace of Jesus — that was already 
known to him (Luke 23 : 6), and which can only signify in the context : From heaven 
or from earth ? The message of his wife (Matt. 27 : 19) must have contributed to in- 
crease the superstitious fears which he felt. 

Vers. 1-5. f Since Judea had been reduced to a Roman province, on the deposition 
of Archelaus, in the year seven of our era, the Jewish authorities had lost the jus 
gladii, which the Romans always reserved to themselves in the provinces incorporated 
with the empire. Perhaps, as Langen concludes, with some probability, from John 

* A very similar assenting affirmation is common in English-speaking society. 
" So you may say" is a strong indorsement of something already uttered.— J. H. 

t Ver. 1. All the Mjj., yyayov instead of rjyayev (T. R.). Ver. 2. 10 Mjj. 60 Mnu. 
Syr. It. Vg. add wov after eflvos. &. B. L. T. Syr. ItP leri< i ue , Vg., add tm before 
Ityovra, Ver, 5. 8. B. L, T. Syr. add nai before ap^evoS, 



484 COMMENTARY Otf ST. LUKE. 

18 : 30, 31, previous governors had relaxed the rigor of public right on this point, and 
Pilate was the first who had confined the Jews within their strict legal competency. 
There is a tradition, quoted in the Talmud, that " forty years before the destruction 
of the temple (and so about the year thirty of our era), the right of pronouncing cap- 
ital sentences was taken from Israel " (Cant. 24. 2). Thus is explained the 
procedure of the Jews (ver. 1) who bring Jesus before Pilate. The other mo- 
tives by which it has been sought to explain it, such as the desire to put 
the entire responsibility of this death on Pilate (Mosheim), or that, of getting 
Jesus put to death by the Roman and specially cruel punishment of the cross 
(Chrysostom), or finally, that of not violating the quiet of the feast (Augus- 
tine), have been refuted by Langen (pp. 246-251). It cannot be decided with certainty 
whether Pilate at this time resided in the palace of Herod the Great, on the hill of 
Sion, or in the citadel Antonia, at the north-west of the temple. Tradition makes the 
Via Dolorosa begin at this latter spot. The complaint uttered b} T the Jews, ver. 2, 
was not the actual beginning of this long negotiation. John alone has preserved to 
us its true commencement (18 : 29-32). The Jews began very skilfully by trying to 
get Pilate to execute the sentence without having submitted it for his confirmation. 
The latter, more adroit than they, and eagerly profiting by the turn thus given to the 
case, declared to them that he was well pleased not to interfere in the matter, and 
that he left Jesus in their hands, that is to say, within the limits of their competency 
(the execution of purely Jewish penalties — excommunication from the synagogue, 
scourging, etc.). But that did not come up to the reckoning of the Jews, who wished 
at any price the death of Jesus. They must therefore abandon the exalted position 
which they had attempted to take, and submit their sentence to be judged by Pilate. 
Here begins the second manoeuvre, the political accusation (Luke, ver. 2 ; comp. 
the three other accounts which are parallel). This charge was a notorious falsehood ; 
for Jesus had resolved in the affirmative the question whether tribute should be paid 
to Caesar, and had carefully abstained from everything which could excite a rising of 
the people. The semblance of truth which is required in every accusation was solely 
in the last words : He made Himself the Christ, a title which they maliciously explained 
by that of king. They began by giving to the name Christ a political color in the 
mouth of Jesus. Hence they conclude that He was bound to forbid the payment of 
tribute. If He did not actually do so, He should have done it logically. Therefore 
it was as if He had done it ; the crime may be justly imputed to Him. This trans- 
lation of the title Christ by that of king before Pilate is especially remarkable, if we 
compare it with the transformation of the same title into that of Son of God before 
the Sanhedrim. The object of the one was to establish the accusation of rebellion, 
as that of the other was to prove the charge of blasphemy. There is a versatility in 
this hatred. The four narratives agree in the question which Pilate addresses to 
Jesus. We know from John that Jesus was in the prsetorium, while the Jews took 
their stand in the open square ; Pilate went from them to Him, and from Him to 
them. The brief answer of Jesus : Thou sayest it, is surprising. But it appears from 
John that the word is only the summary of a conversation of some length between 
Jesus and Pilate — a conversation which oral tradition had not preserved. Pilate was 
intelligent enough to know what to think of the sudden zeal manifested by the San- 
hedrim for the Roman dominion in Palestine, and the conversation which he had with 
Jesus on this first head of accusation (John 18 : 33-38) resulted in convincing him 
that he had not to do with a rival of Caesar. He therefore declares to the Jews that 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 485 

their accusation is unfounded. But they insist (ver. 5), and advance as a proof the 
sort of popular movement of which Galilee was the starting-point (ap^dfievoc), and 
which spread quite recently to the very gates of Jerusalem (IwS tide) — an allusion to 
the Palm Days. It is to the mention Of this new charge that we may apply Matt. 
27 : 12 and Mark 15 : 3, 4, where there is indicated a repetition of accusations which 
Jesus answered only by silence. Luke also declares, ver. 5, that they were the more 
fierce. A second expedient then presents itself to Pilate's mind : to consign the 
whole matter to Herod, the sovereign of Galilee (vers. 6-12). 

Vers. 6-12.* Luke alone relates this remarkable circumstance. By this step the 
clever Roman gained two ends at once. First he got rid of the business which was 
imposed on him, and then he took the first step toward a reconciliation with Herod 
(ver. 12). The cause of their quarrel had probably been some conflict of jurisdic- 
tion. In that case, was not the best means of soldering up the quarrel to concede to 
him a right of jurisdiction within the very city of Jerusalem ? Herod had come to 
the capital, like Pilate, on account of the feast ; ordinarily he lived in the old castle 
of the Asmonean kings, on the hill of Zion. Jesus was to him what a skilful juggler 
is to a seated court — an object of curiosity. But Jesus did not lend Himself to such 
a part ; He had neither words nor miracles for a man so disposed, in whom, besides, 
He saw with horror the murderer of John the Baptist. Before this personage, a 
monstrous mixture of bloody levity and sombre superstition, He maintained a silence 
which even the accusations of the Sanhedrim (ver. 10) could not lead Him to break. 
Herod, wounded and humiliated, took vengeance on this conduct by contempt. The 
expression, a gorgeous robe (ver. 11), denotes not a purple garment, but a white man- 
tle, like that worn by Jewish kings and Roman grandees on high occasions.! We 
cannot see in this, with Riggenbach, a contemptuous allusion to the white robe of the 
high priest. It was a paTody of the royal claims of Jesus, but at the same time an 
indirect declaration of His innocence, at least in a political point of view. The 
crpaTEvp.ara, soldier's of Herod, can only mean his attendants, his body-guard, who 
were allowed to accompany him in the capital. 

Vers. 13-19. X Not having succeeded in this way, Pilate finds himself reduced 
to seek another expedient. Two present themselves to his mind : first, the offer to 
chastise Jesus — that is to say, to scourge Him ; then the proposition to release Him as 
a pardoned malefactor, according to the custom of the feast. The penalty of scourg- 
ing strictly formed part of the punishment of crucifixion ; it was the imperative pre- 
liminary. Jerome says (in Matt. 27) : Sciendum est Pilatum romanis legibus minis- 
trasse, quibus sanciium erat ut qui crucifigeretur, prius flagellis verberetur (Langen, p. 

* Ver. 6. &. B. L. T. omit Takikaiav before ETVEpurrjaev. Ver. 8. B. D. L. T., e% 
LKavciv xpovuv instead of e% Luavov (T. R., Byz.) or efj acavov XP 0V0V (4 Mjj. Syr. ltP ler - 
i( i ue .) 8 Mjj. some Mnn. Syr cur . omit -xoXka after anoveiv. Ver. 11. &. B. L. T. 
omit avrov after TZEptfiahuv. &* L. R. , tizEfnpev instead of aveTzeiuipev. Ver. 12. J*. B. L. 
T., avrovS instead of eavrovS. 

f Langen, p. 270, note (Josephus, Bell. Jud. ii. 1. 1 ; Tacitus, Hist. ii. 89). 

% Ver. 14. 8. A. L. A. some Mnn. omit /car' before avrov. Ver. 15. &. B. K. L. 
M. T. II. several Mnn., avETZEfnpEv yap avrov TrpoS rjfiag instead of ave-xeu\pa yap v/ia$ 
TrpoS avrov, which T. R. reads, with 12 Mjj. the most of the Mnn. ItP leri i ue , Vg. and 
Syr. (which substitutes avrov for vfias). Ver. 17. A. B. K. L. T. II. a Fuld. Sah. 
omit this verse. D. Syr cur . place it after ver. 19. Ver. 18. 8. B. L. T. 2 Mnn., 
avsKpayov instead of avEttpatjav. Ver. 19. B. L. T., (3?t]Qsi.S instead of /Se^A^evof. &. 
B. L. T. X., ev ri) (pv?aK?i instead of elc <pv?.anr)v. 



486 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

281). This previous punishment was often mortal.* In this case Pilate offered it to 
the Jews in place of crucifixion, not as the first act of that punishment. He hoped 
that at the sight of this the more moderate would be satisfied, and that the last act 
would not be demanded of him. But to secure the certainty of this means he com- 
bines it with the other. The time was come for releasing a state prisoner, as was 
common at the feast. He reckons on the numerous adherents of Jesus who had wel- 
comed Him with acclamations on Palm Day, and whose voices, in spite of the rulers, 
would make themselves heard in demanding His release. 

At ver. 15, Tisehendorf prefers the Alex, reading : " For he sent him to us," in- 
stead of, " For I sent you to him." But this reading has arisen from an entire mis- 
understanding of the following phrase. It was translated, " And, lo ! nothing is done 
unto him (at Herod's court) to show that he has been judged worthy of death ;" 
while the Greek expression signifies, according to a well-known construction, " And, 
lo ! he is found to have done nothing (He, Jesus) which was worthy of death [in 
Herod's conviction as well as in mine]." The received reading is therefore indisput- 
ably the true one. Pilate declares aloud that the result of this whole series of in- 
quiries has been to establish the innocence of Jesus. But why in this case conclude, 
as he does {therefore, ver. 16), by offering to scourge Him, thereafter to release Him ? 
It was already a denial of justice to send Jesus to Herod after having acknowledged 
His innocence ; it is a more flagrant one still to decree against Him, without any 
alleged reason, the penalty of scourging. This first concession betrays his weakness, 
and gives him over beforehand to his adversaries, who are more decided than he. If 
ver. 17 is authentic, and if it is to be put here (see the critical note), the most natural 
connection between vers. 16 and 17 is this : " I will release him ; for I am even under 
obligation to release unto you a prisoner. " Pilate affects to have no doubt that, when 
the liberation of a prisoner is offered to the people, they will claim Jesus. But if 
this verse is rejected as unauthentic, we must recognize in the cnroXvau, I will release, 
ver. 16, a positive allusion to the custom of releasing a prisoner. At ver. 18, the 
Jews, understanding in a moment Pilate's idea, would reply to him by putting them- 
selves at his view-point. But this explanation is somewhat forced, and the omission 
of ver. 17 may have arisen in the Alex, from confounding the two AN . . . 
which begin the two verses 17 and 18. In John, Pilate, while reminding the people 
of this custom, directly offers them the deliverance of Jesus. This was probably the 
real course of events. In Matthew, he puts the alternative between Jesus and Barab- 
bas, which is less natural. In Mark, it is the people who, interrupting the deliberation 
relative to Jesus, all at once claim the liberation of a prisoner, which is less natural 
still. The origin of the custom here mentioned is not known. It is far from prob- 
able that it was introduced by the Romans. Langen justly quotes against this sup- 
position the words of Pilate (John 18 : 39), " Ye have a custom." Perhaps it was a 
memorial of the great national deliverance, of the escape from Egypt, which was cel- 
ebrated at the feast of Passover. The Romans, who took a pride in respecting the 
usages of conquered peoples, had fallen in with this custom . 

But before Pilate had carried out the scourging, the people had already made their 
choice. This choice is presented, ver. 18, as unanimous and spontaneous (irafntTiTiQEi), 
while Matthew and Mark, more accurate on the point, ascribe it to the pressure 
exercised by the rulers and their underlings, which harmonizes with John 19:6, 

* Cicero, in Flaccum, § 10. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 487 

Mark and Luke characterize Barabbas as one who had been guilty of murder in an 
insurrection ; he was therefore a representative of the same revolutionary spirit of 
which the Sanhedrim were accusing Jesus. To give up Jesus to the cross, and to de- 
mand Barabbas, was to do at the same moment two significant acts. It was to repu- 
diate the spirit of submission and faith which had distinguished the whole work of 
Jesus, and which might have saved the people. It was at the same time to let loose 
the spirit of revolt which was to carry them to their destruction. The name Barabbas 
comes from -q and tf^N ( son °f the father). This name signifies, according to most, 
son of Abba, of God. Keim understands son of the Rabbin, taken as spiritual father. 
The name Jesus, which is also given to this man in 4 Mnn. of Matthew, and which 
was found, according to the Fathers, in a considerable number of mss., was probably 
added to the name of Barabbas, with the desire to render the parallelism the more 
striking. 

The liberation of Barabbas was a judicial act ; to carry it out, Pilate must ascend 
his judgment-seat. It was probably at this moment that the message of his wife, of 
which Matthew speaks (ver. 19, ' ; When he was set down on the judgment-seat "), 
was transmitted to him. 

Vers. 20-25.* This manoeuvre having failed, Pilate returns to the expedient on 
which he reckons most : he will try to satisfy the anger of the most infuriated, and 
to excite the pityof those who are yet capable of this feeling, by a beginning of pun- 
ishment. TJie real contents of the declaration announced by the TrpooeQuvrjoe, he spake 
again to them, ver. 20, are not expressed till the end of ver. 22 : "I will therefore 
chastise him, and let him go." But Pilate is interrupted before having uttered his 
whole thought by the cries of the Jews, ver. 21 ; his answer, ver. 22, breathes indig- 
nation. By the rpirov, for the third time, allusion is made to his two previous dec- 
larations, ver. 4 and vers. 14, 15. Tap bears on the idea of crucifixion, ver. 21 : 
" Crucify him ? For he has done . . . what evil?" But this indignation of 
Pilate is only an example of cowardice. Why scourge Him whom he acknowledges 
to be innocent ? This first weakness is appreciated and immediately turned to ac- 
count by the Jews, f It is here, in Luke's account, that the scourging should be 
placed. John, who has left the most vivid recital of this scene, places it exactly at 
this moment. According to Matthew and Mark, the scourging did not take place till 
after the sentence was pronounced, agreeably to custom, and as the first stage of 
crucifixion. Ver. 23 summarizes a whole series of negotiations, the various phases of 
which John alone has preserved to us (19 : 1-12). Jesus, covered with blood, appears 
before the people. But the rulers and their partisans succeed in extinguishing the 
voice of pity in the multitude. Pilate, who reckoned on the effect of the spectacle, 
is shocked at this excess of cruelty. He authorizes them to carry out the crucifixion 
themselves at their own risk ; they decline. They understand that it is he who 
serves as their executioner. To gain him there remain yet two ways. All at once 
changing their tactics, they demand the death of Jesus as a blasphemer : " He made 

* Ver. 20. 6 Mjj. 2 Mnn. Vss., 6s instead of ovv. K. B. L. T. 2 Mnn. add 
avroiS after TtpodEqx^vr^dEv. Ver. 21. &. B. D. F a Or., dravpov, dravpov, instead 
of dravpcodov, dravpoodov. Ver. 23. 5*. B. L. 130 Mnn. ItP leri i"«. omit nai roov 
apxi£p£(*>v after avroov. Ver. 25. 16 Mjj. many Mnn. omit avroiS after a7teXvdev 
8e. 

f In the " Scripture Characters" of the late Dr. Candlish, of Edinburgh, three 
chapters of singularly clear analysis are devoted to Pilate. They well deserve study. 
—J. H. 



488 COMMEtfTAKY OK ST. LUKE. 

himself the Son of God." But on hearing this accusation, Pilate shows himself still 
less disposed to condemn Jesus, whose person had already inspired him with a mys- 
terious fear. The Jews then determine to employ the weapon which they had kept 
to the last, probably as the most ignoble in their own eyes, that of personal intimida- 
tion. They threaten him with an accusation before the emperor, as having taken a 
rebel under his protection. Pilate knows how ready Tiberius will be to welcome such 
a charge. On hearing this threat, he understands at once, that if he wishes to save 
his place and life, he has no alternative but to yield. It is at this point that the four 
narratives again unite. Pilate for the second time ascends the judgment-seat, which 
was set up in a raised place in the open square situated before the praetorium. He 
washes his hands (Matthew), and again declining all participation in the judicial mur- 
der which is about to be committed, he delivers Jesus over to His enemies. 

Ver. 25 of Luke is the only passage of this narrative where the feelings of the his- 
torian break through the objectivity of the narrative. The details repeated here (ver. 
19) regarding the character of Barabbas bring into prominence all that is odious in 
the choice of Israel ; and the words, he delivered Him to their will, all the cowardice 
of the judge who thus declines to act as the protector of innocence. Matthew and 
Mark here narrate the abuse which Jesus had to suffer from the Roman soldiers ; it 
is the scene related John 19 : 1-3, and which should be placed before the scourging. 
The scene of it, according to Mark, was the inner court of the praetorium, which 
agrees with John. It was less the mockery of Jesus Himself than of. the Jewish 
Messiah in His person. 

3. The Crucifixion of Jesus : 23:26-46. — John indicates, as the time when Pilate 
pronounced sentence, the sixth hour ; Mark, as the hour at which Jesus was crucified, 
the third. According to the ordinary mode of reckoning time among the ancients 
(starting from six o'clock in the morning), it would be midday with the first, nine 
o'clock in the morning with the second. The contradiction seems flagrant : Jesus 
condemned at noon, according to John, and crucified at nine according to Mark ! 
Langen brings new arguments to support an attempt at harmony which has often 
been made — that John reckoned the hours as we do,' that is to say, starting from 
midnight. The sixth hour would then be with him six o'clock in the morning, 
which would harmonize a little better with Mark's date, the interval between six and 
nine o'clock being employed in preparations for the crucifixion.* But is it probable 
that John adopted a mode of reckoning different from that which was generally in 
use, and that without in the least apprising his readers ? f We incline rather to 

* Langen rests his argument on three passages, one from the " Natural History" 
of Pliny the elder (ii. 70), the second from the Letters of Pliny the younger (iii. 5), 
the third from the Acts of Polycarp's martyrdom (c. 7), proving that at the beginning 
of the Christian era our present mode of reckoning (starting from midnight and mid- 
day) was already known. The third passage really possesses great force ; and it is 
the more important, because it proceeds from the very country in which John wrote. 

f We owe to M. Andre Cherbuliez, of Geneva, and M. de Rougemout, who sent 
it to us, an interesting contribution on this question, taken from the " Sacred Dis- 
courses" of iElius Aristides, a Greek sophist of the second century, a contemporary 
of Polycarp, whom he may have met in the streets of Smyrna. In the first book, 
God commands him in a dream to take a cold bath ; it is winter ; and as the most 
suitable hour he chooses the sixth, undoubtedly because it is the warmest. Then, ad- 
dressing his friend Bassus, who keeps him waiting, he says to him, pointing to the 
pillars, " Seest thou ? the shadow isalready turning." There is no doubt, therefore, 
that the sixth hour with him denotes midday, and not six o'clock morning or evening. 



COMMEKTAEY OK ST. LUKE. 489 

hold with Lange, in his " Life of Jesus," that Mark dated the beginning of the pun- 
ishment from the time of the scourging, which legally formed its first act. In this 
Mark followed an opinion which naturally arose from the connection in which scourg- 
ing was ordinarily practised. It is John who, by hi3 more exact knowledge of the 
whole course of the trial, has placed this part of the punishment of Jesus at its true 
time and in its true light. The scourging, in Pilate's view, was not the beginning of 
the crucifixion, but rather a means of preventing it. Thus it is that Mark has ante- 
dated the crucifixion by the whole interval which divided the scene of the Ecce home 
from the pronouncing of the sentence and its execution. It is absolutely impossible 
to suppose that the whole long and complicated negotiation between the Jews and 
Pilate took place between the last sitting of the Sanhedrim (which was held as soon 
as it was day, Luke 22 : 66) and six o'clock in the morning. See my " Comment, sur 
Jean,"ii. pp. 606 and 607. 

The punishment of crucifixion was in use among several ancient peoples (Persians, 
Assyrians, Egyptians, Indians, Scythians, Greeks), Among the Romans, it was 
used only for slaves (servile supplicium, Horace), and for the greatest criminals 
(assassins, brigands, rebels). It was abolished by Constantine. The scourging took 
place either before setting out, or on the way to the cross (Liv. xxxiii. 36). According 
to Plutarch* every criminal carried his own cross. There was borne before him or 
hung round his neck a white plate, on which his crime was indicated (titulus, oapig, 
aMa). The punishment took place, as a rule, beyond inhabited houses, f near a road, 
that the largest possible number of people might witness it. The Talmud of Jeru- 
salem relates that before crucifixion there was offered to the prisoner a stupefying 
draught, which compassionate people, generally ladies of Jerusalem, prepared at 
their own cost. % The cross consisted of two pieces, the one perpendicular (staticu- 
lum), the other horizontal (antenna). Nearly at the middle of the first was fixed a 
pin of wood or horn (n^jua,^ sedile), on which the prisoner rested as on horseback. || 
Otherwise the weight would have torn the hands and left the body to fall. They 
began ordinarily by setting up and fixing the cross (Cic. Verr. v. 66 ; Jos. " Bell. 
Jud." vii. 6. 4) ; then by means of cords the body was raised to the height of the 
antenna, and the nails driven into the hands. The condemned person was rarely 
nailed to the cross while it was yet lying on the ground, to be afterward raised. 
The cross does not seem to have been very high. Langen thinks that it was twice 
the height of a man : that is the maximum ; and it is probable that generally it was 
not so high. The rod of hyssop on which the sponge was held out to Jesus could 
not be more than two or three feet in length. As to the feet, Paulus, Liicke, Winer, 
and others have more or less positively denied that they were nailed. They appeal 
to John 20 : 25. But would it not have been singular pedantry on the part of 
Thomas to speak here of the holes in the feet f He enumerates the wounds, which 
were immediately within reach of his hand. It is the same when Jesus speaks to 
Thomas, ver. 27. Then they allege the fact that the Empress Helena, after having 

* " De sera Numinis vindicta," c. 9. 

f Plautus, " Miles gloriosus," ii. 4. 6 : extra portam. 

X " Bab. Sanh." f. 43. 1 : "A grain of frankincense in a cup of wine ; ut turbare- 
tur ejus intellectus. ' ' 

S lr. "Adv. Ha3r."ii. 42. 

| Justin Martyr, " Dial." 91 : k<p u EKoixovvrai ol aravpufievoi. lremeus, " Adv. 
Hser." ii. 42. Tertullian, " Cont. Marc." iii. 18. 



490 COMMENTARY ON" ST. LUKE. 

discovered the true cross, sent to her son the nails which had been fastened in the 
hands of Christ.* But it is not said that she sent to him all that she had found. The 
contrary rather appears from the tenor of the narrative (see Meyer, ad Matt. 27 : 35). 
Hug, Meyer, Langen have proved beyond doubt, by a series of quotations from 
Xenophon, Plautus, Lucian, Justin, Tertullian, etc. , that the custom was to nail the 
feet also ; and Luke 24 : 39 (written without the least reference to the prophecy of 
Ps. 22) admits of no doubt that this practice was followed in the case of Jesus. For 
how could His feet have served as a proof of His identity (on avrbi ky6) otherwise 
than by the wounds the mark of which they bore ? The small board (suppedaneum), 
on which the representations of the crucifixion usually make the feet of our Lord 
rest, is a later invention, rendered in a way necessary by the suppression of the sedate 
in those pictures. The feet were nailed either the one above the other by means of a 
single nail, which would explain the epithet Tp'icrjhoS, three-nailed, given to the cross 
by Nonnus, in his versified paraphrase of John's Gospel (4th century), or the one 
beside the other, which generally demanded four nails in all, as Plautus f seems to 
say, but might also be executed with three, if we suppose the use of a nail in the 
form of a horseshoe having two points. Was the sole of the foot supported on the 
wood by means of a very full bend of the knee, or was the leg in its whole length 
laid to the cross, so that the feet preserved their natural position ? Such details prob- 
ably varied at the caprice of the executioner. The crucified usually lived twelve 
hours, sometimes even till the second or third day. The fever which soon set in 
produced a burning thirst. The increasing inflammation of the wounds in the back, 
hands, and feet ; the congestion of the blood in the head, lungs, and heart ; the swell- 
ing of every vein, an indescribable oppression, racking pains in the head ; the stiff- 
ness of the limbs, caused by the unnatural position of the body — these all united to 
make the punishment, in the language of Cicero (in " Verr." v. 64), crudelissimum 
teterrimumque supplicium. 

From the beginning Jesus had foreseen that such would be the end of His life. 
He had announced it to Nicodemus (John 3 : 14), to the Jews (12 : 32), and once and 
again to His disciples. It was the foresight of this which had caused His agony in 
Gethsemane. No kind of death was so fitted to strike the imagination. For this 
very reason, no other was so well fitted to realize the end which God proposed in the 
death of Christ. The object was, as St. Paul says (Rom. 3), to give to the sinful 
world a complete demonstration (evdeitjis) of the righteousness of God (vers. 25, 26). 
By its cruelty, a death of this sort corresponds to the odiousness of sin ; by its dura- 
tion, it leaves the crucified one time to recognize fully the right of God ; lastly, its 
dramatic character produces an impression, never to be effaced, on the conscience of 
the spectator. Of all known punishments, it was the cross which must be that of 
the Lamb of God. 

"We divide this piece into three parts : the way to the cross (vers. 26-32) ; the 
crucifixion (vers. 33-38) ; the time passed on the cross (39-46). 

1st. Vers. 26-324 The punishment required to be inflicted outside the city (Lev. 

* Socrates, " Hist. Eccl." i. 17. f " Mostell." 2 : 1. 13. 

X Ver. 26. 1*. B. C. D. L. X. some Mnn., 2ip.ova rtva nvprjvaiov epxofxevov instead 
of ZifiuvoS tivoS Kvpijvawv epxofcevov. Ver. 27. A. B. C. D. L. X. some Mnn. omit 
nai after at. &. omits at icai. Ver. 29. &. B. C. L. eQpe^av, D. s^eQpefav, in- 
stead of eBrjlaoav. Ver. 31. D. K. A. several MDn. ltP leri< i ue , Vg., ycvrjaerai instead 
of yevTjrai. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 491 

24 : 14) ; it was the type of exclusion from human society (Heb. 13). John 19 : 17 
informs us that Jesus went out of the city bearing His cross Himself, according to 
custom (Matt. 18 : 38). But we are left in ignorance of the motive which soon led 
the Roman soldiers charged with the execution to lay hold of Simon of Cyrene for 
this office. Did Jesus faint under the burden, or did Simon testify his sympathy 
with Him rather too loudly ; or was there here one of those abuses of military power 
which are readily indulged in the case of a foreigner ? "We cannot tell. Cyrene, the 
capita] of Libya, had a numerous Jewish population, many of whom came to settle at 
Jerusalem (Acts 6 : 9). It is natural to conclude from the words, coming out of the 
counti-y, that he was returning to the city after his work. It was not therefore a 
holy day. Langen answers, it is true, that he might merely have been taking a 
walk ! Mark 15 : 21 proves that this event became a bond of union between Simon 
and the Saviour, and that he soon entered into the Church with his family. He 
afterward settled at Rome with his wife and two sons (Rom. 16 : 13).* 

Vers. 27-32 are peculiar to Luke. In ver. 27 we see popular feeling breaking out 
through the mouth of the women, not, as M. de Pressense thinks, those who had ac- 
companied Jesus from Galilee, but inhabitants of Jerusalem. The sayings of Jesus 
testify to His entire self-forgetfulness ; they contain an allusion to Hos. 10 : 8. The 
meaning of ver. 31 appears to be that indicated by Bleek : the green wood is Jesus 
led to death as a rebel, notwithstanding His constant submission to the Gentile 
authorities ; the dry wood is the Jewish people, who, by their spirit of revolt, will, 
with much stronger reason, bring down on themselves the sword of the Romans. 
The more contrary to nature it is that Jesus should die as a rebel, the more is it in 
keeping with the nature of things that Israel should perish for rebellion. Thus Jesus 
makes the people aware of the falsehood which ruled His condemnation, and the way 
in which God will take vengeance. No doubt, behind the human judgment which 
visits the nation, there is found, as in all similar sayings (comp. Luke 3 : 9, etc.), the 
divine judgment reserved for each individual. This last reference is demanded by 
the connection of vers. 30 and 31. f The figure of the green wood and the dry is bor- 
rowed from Ezek. 21 : 3-8. The two malefactors were probably companions of 
Barabbas. This accumulation of infamy on Jesus was owing perhaps to the hatred 
of the rulers. God brought out of it the glory of Jlis Son. 

2d. Vers. 33-384 I s tne s P ot where Jesus was crucified that which is shown for 

* This statement is a little stronger than the facts warrant, though early tradition 
sustains it. " Alexander and Rufus" are named by Mark as known to his readers, 
and it is assumed that this is the Rufus of Rom. 16 : 13. But Rufus was a common 
name, and his mother only is referred to. Tradition in the third and fourth cen- 
turies always found prominent places for names mentioned in the sacred writings. — 
J. H. 

f The Dutch philologist Peerlkaamp (in his " Taciti Agricola," Leyden, 1864) 
thinks that we must transpose ver. 31, putting it after ver. 27 : " And they lamented 
Him, saying : If they do these things," etc. But this arbitrary transposition is not 
demanded by anything in the text. 

\ Ver. 33. 5 Mjj. 5 Mnn. Syr. It. Vg., v^Oov instead of airrjMw. Ver. 34. ft a B. 
D. 2 Mnn. It ali< *. omit the words o 6e Itjoovs . . . -koiovow. These words are found 
in 20 Mjj. the most of the Mnn. Syr. ItP leri i ue , Ir. Horn. Clement, Acta Pilati, etc. 
A. X. several Mnn. It ali< i. Vg., nlripovs instead of KM\pov (which seems to be taken 
from the parallels of the LXX). Ver. 35. 7 Mjj. 6 Mnn. Vss. omit aw avrois after 
ot apxovreS. Ver. 36. ft. B. L., eveirai^av instead of eveirai^ov. ft. A. B. C. L. omit 
nai before o£o; . Ver. 38. ft. B. L. omit yeypafifxevij. ft ca B. C. L. Syr cur . omit the 
words ypafiuaoiv zKhriviKoiS nai pu/uaiKotS nat efipainoiS (taken from John). 



492 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

it at the present day, in the inclosure of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre ? The 
question does not seem yet decided. Though this place is now within the city in- 
closure, it might not have been so then. The name place of the skull (skull, in He- 
brew rhy?l> m Aramaic tf rp}?}>* from 77} to T °W) does not come from the skulls of 
the condemned which remained lying there ; this would require the plural : the place 
of skulls ; besides, unburied bones would not have been left there. The name is 
rather to be traced to the bare rounded form of the hill. Matthew and Mark relate 
here that Jesus refused the stupefying draught which was offered Him. According to 
Mark, it was aromatic wine ; according to Matthew, vinegar mingled with gall.f 

Of the seven sayings which Jesus uttered on the cross, the first three refer to the 
persons surrounding Him — His enemies, His companion in punishment, and those 
whom He loves most tenderly, His mother and His friend ; they are, as it were, His 
will. The three which follow : " My God, my God ... 1 thirst ; it is fin- 
ished," refer to His sufferings and the work which is being finished ; the first two, 
to the sufferings of His soul and of His body ; the third, to the result gained by this 
complete sacrifice. Finally, the seventh and last : " Father, into Thy hands . . . " 
is the cry of perfect confidence from His expiring heart in its utmost weakness. 
Three of those seven sayings, all three words of grace and faith, are related by Luke, 
and by him only. 

The prayer of ver. 34 is wanting in some mss. This omission is probably the re- 
sult of accident ; for the oldest translations, as well as the great majority of mss., 
guarantee its authenticity ; and the appeal of the thief for the grace of Jesus, a few 
moments later, cannot be well explained, except by the impression produced on him 
by the hearing of this filial invocation. The persons for whom this prayer is offered 
cannot be the Roman soldiers, who are blindly executing the orders which they have 
received ; it is certainly the Jews, who, by rejecting and slaying their Messiah, are 
smiting themselves with a mortal blow (John 2 : 19). It is therefore literally true, 
that in acting thus they know not what they do. The prayer of Jesus was granted in 
the forty years' respite during which they were permitted, before perishing, to hear 
the apostolic preaching. The wrath of God might have been discharged upon them 
at the very moment. 

The casting of the lot for the garments of Jesus (ver. 34) belongs to the same class 
of derisive actions as those related ver. 35 et seq. By this act the prisoner became the 
sport of his executioners. The garment of the cruciarii belonged to them, according 
to the Roman law. Every cross was kept by a detachment of four soldiers, a 
rerpaSiov (Acts 12 : 4). The plural /cA^povs, lots, is taken from the parallels. The lot 
was twice drawn, first for the division of the four nearly equal parts into which the 
girments of Jesus were divided (cloak, cap, girdle, sandals), then for His robe or 
tunic, which was too valuable to be put into one of the four lots. The word Qeupelv, 
beholding (ver. 35), does not seem to indicate a malevolent feeling ; it rather forms a 
contrast with what follows. The words avv avrois, with them, must be rejected from 
the text. The meaning of the term, the chosen of God, is, that the Christ is He on 
whose election rests that of the entire people. The mockeries of the soldiers apply to 

* It is from this word that the name Golgotha is generally derived (Matthew, 
Mark, John). Kraft (" Topogr. Jems." p. 158) has recently proposed another 
etymology : 73, hill, and nj713> death (comp. the place named Jer. 31 : 39). 

f The* ancient naturalists, Dioscorides and Galen, ascribe to incense and myrrh a 
stupefying influence (Langen, p. 302). 



COMMENTAKY 02* ST. LUKE. 493 

Jewish royalty in itself, more than to Jesus personally (John 19 : 5, 14, 15). It has 
often been thought that the wine which the soldiers offered to Jesus was that which 
had been prepared for themselves (6£oS, a common wine) ; but the sponge and the rod 
of hyssop which are on the spot leave no doubt that it was intended to allay the 
sufferings of the prisoners. It was perhaps the same draught which had been offered 
to them at the beginning of the crucifixion. The soldiers pretend to treat Jesus as a 
king, to whom the festive cup is presented. Thus this derisive homage is connected 
with the ironical inscription (not in regard to Jesus, but in regard to the people) 
placed on the cross (ver. 38). It is this coDnection of ideas which is expressed by the 
7)v 6t Kai, there also was. By this inscription, so humbling to the Jews, Pilate took 
vengeance for the degrading constraint to which they had subjected him by forcing 
him to execute an innocent man. The mention of the three languages is an interpo- 
lation taken from John. 

3d. Vers. 39-46.* Matthew and Mark ascribe the same jestings to the two thieves. 
The partisans of harmony at any price think that they both began with blasphemy, 
and that one of them afterward came to himself. In any case, it must be assumed 
that Matthew and Mark did not know this change of mind ; otherwise, why should 
they not have mentioned it ? But is it not more natural to hold that they group in 
categories, and that they are ignorant of the particular fact related by Luke V How 
had this thief been touched and convinced ? Undoubtedly he had been struck all at 
once with the contrast between the holiness which shone in Jesus and his own crimes 
(vers. 40 and 41). Then the meekness with which Jesus let Himself be led to punish- 
ment, and especially His prayer for His executioners, had taken hold of his con- 
science and heart. The title Father, which Jesus gave to God at the very moment 
when God was treating Him in so cruel a manner, had revealed in Him a Being who 
was living in an intimate relation to Jehovah, and led him to feel His divine greatness. 
His faith in the title King of the Jews, inscribed on His cross, was only the conse- 
quence of such impressions. The words ov6l av, not even thou (ver. 40), which he ad- 
dresses to his companion, allude to the difference of moral situation which belongs to 
them both, and the railers with whom he is joining : " Thou who are not merely, like 
them, a spectator of this punishment, but who art undergoing it thyself." It is not 
for him, who is on the eve of appearing before the divine tribunal, to act as the pro- 
fane. 'Otl, because, refers to the idea contained in popy : " Thou at least oughtest to 
fear . . . ; for . . ." 

The prayer which he addresses to Jesus (ver. 42) is suggested to him by that faith 
in an unlimited mercy which had been awaked in him by hearing the prayer of Jesus 
for His executioners. It seems to me probable that the omission of the word Kvpie, 
Lord, in the Alex., arises from the mistake of the copyist, who was giving the prayer 
of the thief from memory, and that the transformation of the dative t£> 'lyaov into 

* Ver. 39. B. L. ovxt, &. C. Syr cnr . lt ali( i. Aeyuv ovxi, instead of s.eyuv el. Ver. 
40. J*. B. C. L. X., emTifiuv avrw e$7) instead of e-n-ert/ia avru 7eyuv. Ver. 42. &. B. C. 
L., lyaov (vocative) instead of rw Itjoov. &. B. C. D. L. M. 3 Mnn. omit tcvpu. B. L. 
It ali< i., etS ttjv fiaoiAeiav aov instead of ev tt\ paoueia aov. Ver. 44. B. C. L. add tj6ti 
before uoel. Ver. 45. &. B. C. (?) L., tov tj/uov ek/uitovtoS instead of nai eokotloBtj o 
r/AtoS, which T. R. reads, with 17 Mjj. the most of the Mnn. Syr. ltP leri <i ae . &. B. C. 
L., eaxtodj] 6e instead of kci egxloBti. Ver. 46. ». A. B. C. K. M. P. Q. U. X. n. 20 
Mnn. Just. Or., irapaTiBe/uai instead of TrapaBr/oojuai, which T. R. reads, with 8 Mjj. 
several Mnn. 1*. B. C. D., tovto oe instead of nai ravra, which T. R. reads, with 12 
Mjj., or Kai tovto, which K. M. P. IT. 10 Mnn. It ali i read. 



494 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

the apostrophe ('Itjoov) was the effect of this omission. The touching cry, Remember 
me ! finds its explanation in that community of suffering which seems to him hence- 
forth to establish an indissoluble bond between Jesus and him. Jesus cannot forget 
him who shared His punishment. The expression, coming in His kingdom, h t?) 
fiaotXela (not / or His kingdom, sis tt)v fiaciXeiav), denotes His Messianic return with 
divine splendor and royal majesty some time after His death. He does not think of 
the possibility of the body of Jesus being raised. In our Lord's answer, the word to- 
day stands foremost, because Jesus wishes to contrast the nearness of the promised 
happiness with the remote future to which the prayer of the thief refers. To-day, 
before the setting of the sun which is shining on us. The word paradise seems to 
come from a Persian word signifying park. It is used in the form of DH"1D (Eccles. 
2:5; Song of Solomon, 4 : 13), to denote a royal garden. In the form napadeicoc, it 
corresponds in the LXX. to the word p, garden (Gen. 2 : 8, 3 : 1). The earthly Eden 
once lost, this w T ord paradise is applied to that part of Hades where the faithful are 
assembled ; and even in the last writings of the N". T. , the Epistles and the Apoca- 
lypse, to a yet higher abode, that of the Lord and glorified believers, the third heaven, 
2 Cor. 12 : 4 ; Rev. 2:7. It is paradise as part of Hades which is spoken of here. 

The extraordinary signs which accompanied the death of Jesus (vers. 44, 45) — the 
darkness, the rending of the veil of the temple, and according to Matthew, the earth- 
quake and the opening of several graves, are explained by the profound connection 
existing, on the one side between Christ and humanity, on the other between human- 
ity and nature. Christ is the soul of humanity, as huraanitj 7 is the soul of the ex- 
ternal world. "We need not take the words, over all the earth, in an absolute sense. 
Comp. 21 : 23, where the expression knl rfji yqS, a weaker one it is true, evidently 
refers to the Holy Land only. The phenomenon in question here may and must 
have extended to the surrounding countries. The cause of this loss of light cannot 
have been an eclipse ; for this phenomenon is impossible at the time of full moon. 
It was perhaps connected with the earthquake with which it was accompanied ; or 
it may have resulted from an atmospheric or cosmical cause.* This diminution of 
the external light corresponded to the moral darkness which was felt by the heart of 
Jesus : My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me t This moment, to which St. 
Paul alludes (Gal. 3 : 13 : "He was made a curse for us"), was that at which the 
Paschal lamb was slain in the temple. It is difficult to decide between the two read- 
ings ver. 45 : " And the sun was darkened" (T. R.) ; " And the sun failing." In 
any case, it is the cause of the phenomenon related ver. 44, mentioned too late. 
Luke omits the earthquake ; he had other sources. 

* Neander cites the fact (" Leben Jesu" p. 640) that Phlegon, author of a 
chronicle under the Emperor Adrian, speaks of an eclipse (?) of the sun as having 
taken place in the fourth year of the 202d Olympiad (785 a.u.c), greater than all 
former eclipses, and that night came on at the sixth hour of the day, to such a degree 
that the stars were seen shining in the heavens. This date approximates to the prob- 
able year of the death of Jesus (783). M. Liais, a well-known naturalist, relates 
that on the 11th of April, 1860, in the province of Pernambuco, while the sky was 
perfectly clear, the sun became suddenly dark about midday to such a degree that 
for some seconds it was possible to look at it. The solar disk appeared surrounded 
with a ring having the colors of the rainbow, and quite near it there was seen a 
bright star, which must have been Venus. The phenomenon lasted for some min- 
utes. M. Liais attributes it to cosmical nebulae floating in space beyond our atmos- 
phere. A similar phenomenon must have occurred in the years 1106, 1208, 1547, 
and 1706 (" Revue germanique," 1860). 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 495 

. J 

The rending of the veil, mentioned by the three Syn., should probably be con- 
nected with this physical commotion. Is the veil referred to that which was at the 
entrance of the Holy Place, or that which concealed the Holy of Holies ? As the 
second only had a typical sense, and alone bore, strictly speaking, the name 
Kara-Keracfia (Philo calls the other ad^vufia *), it is more natural to think of the latter. 
The idea usually found in this symbolic event is this : The way to the throne of grace 
is henceforth open to all. But did not God rather mean to show thereby, that from 
that time the temple was no longer His dwelling-place V As the high priest rent his 
garment in view of any great offence, so God rends the veil which covers the place 
where He enters into communion with His people ; that is to say, the Holy of Holies 
is no more ; and if there is no Holy of Holies, then no Holy Place, and consequently 
no court, no altar, no valid sacrifices. The temple is profaned, and consequently 
abolished by God Himself. The efficacy of sacrifice has henceforth passed to another 
blood, another altar, another priesthood. This is what Jesus had announced to the 
Jews in this form : Put me to death, and by the very deed ye shall destroy the 
temple ! Jewish and Christian tradition has preserved the memory of analogous 
events which must have happened at this period. In the Judeo-Christian Gospel 
quoted by Jerome (in Matt. 27 : 51), it was related that at the time of the earthquake 
a large beam lying above the gate of the temple snapped asunder. The Talmud says 
that forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem the gates of the temple opened 
of their own accord. Johanan Ben Zacchai (p^^ ,, * s pn» Anna, with the name of 
Jehovah prefixed) rebuked them, and said : Temple, wherefore dost thou open of thy- 
self ? I see thereby that the end is near ; for it is written (Zech. 11 : 1), " Open thy 
doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars." f At the time of the eclipse 
mentioned above, a great earthquake destroyed part of the city of Nice, in Bithynia.i 
This catastrophe may have been felt even in Palestine. Those phenomena, which 
are placed by Luke before the time of our Lord's death, are placed by Matthew and 
Mark immediately after. Another proof of the difference of their sources. 

Here should come the two sayings mentioned by John : 1 thirst, and It is jinislied. 
Perhaps the words : Wlien He had cried with a loud voice (ver. 46), include the saying, 
It is finished, which immediately preceded the last breath. But the participle Quvijoas 
has probably no other meaning than the verb el-ire : ' ' Raising His voice He said. ' ' The 
words : W7un He had cried with a loud voice, in Matthew and Mark, refer rather to 
the last saying uttered by Jesus according to Luke : Father, into thy hands . . . 
The latter expresses what John has described in the form of an act : He gave up His 
spirit. The last saying is a quotation from Ps. 31. The fut. irapaBjjoouai, I shall 
commit, in the received reading, is probably borrowed from the LXX. The fut. was 
natural in David's mouth, for death was yet at a distance ; he described the way in 
which he hoped one day to draw his last breath. But the present is alone in keeping 
with the actual circumstances of Jesus. At the moment when He is about to lose 
self -consciousness, and when the possession of His spirit escapes from Him, He con- 
fides it as a deposit to his Father. The word Father shows that His soul has recov- 
ered full serenity. Not long ago He was struggling with the divine sovereignty and 
holiness {my God, my God !). Now the darkness is gone ; He has recovered His light, 
His Father's face. It is the first effect of the completion of redemption, the glorious 
prelude of the resurrection. 

* Neander, " Leben Jesu," p. 640. f " Bab. Toma," 39. 2. 

± See Neander's " Leben Jesu," p. 640. 



496 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

Keim does not accept as historical any of the seven sayings which Jesus is said to 
have uttered on the cross. The prayer for his executioners has no meaning either in 
regard to the Gentile soldiers, who were merely blind instruments, or in respect of 
the Jews, to whom He had just announced divine judgment. Besides, silence suits 
Jesus better than a forced and superhuman heroism. The story of the thief is ex- 
ploded by the fact that it was impossible for him to have known the innocence and 
the future return of Jesus, and that Jesus should have promised him paradise, which 
is in the hand of the Father. The saying addressed to John and Mary is not histori- 
cal ; for those two were not at the foot of the cross (Syn. ), and John never had a 
house to which to take Mary. The prayer : My God, my God, is only an importation 
of Ps. 22 into the account of the Passion ; Jesus was too original to borrow the expres- 
sion of His feelings from the O. T. The same reason disproves the authenticity of 
the last saying : Father, into Thy hands, borrowed from Ps. 31. The It isfinislied of 
John is only the summary expression of the dogmatics already put by the author into 
the mouth of Jesus in His last discourses. The historic truth is thus reduced to two 
cries of Jesus : one of pain, which John has translated, not without reason, into I 
thirst; and a last cry, that of death. This silence of Jesus forms, according to Keim, 
the real greatness of His death. The prayer of Jesus and His threatening are not 
more contradictory than divine justice and human intercession. There is room in 
history for the effects of both. The prophetic form in which Jesus clothes the ex- 
pression of His thoughts takes nothing from their originality. They spring from the 
depths of His being, and meet with expressous which are familiar to Him, and which 
He employs instinctively. John here, as throughout his Gospel, completes the syn- 
optics. We think we have shown how the prayer of the thief is psychologically pos- 
sible. It is doing too much honor to the primitive Church to ascribe to her the in- 
vention of such sayings. If she had invented, she would not have done so in a style 
so chaste, so concise, so holy ; once more compare the apocryphal accounts. 



third cycle. — chap. 23:47-56. 

Close of the Account of the Passion. 

Vers. 47-49.* These verses describe the immediate effects of our Lord's death, 
first on the Roman centurion (ver. 47), then on the people (ver. 48), lastly on the fol- 
lowers of Jesus (ver. 49). Mark says of the centurion : When he saw. These words 
relate to the last cry of Jesus and to the event of His death. In Matthew and Luke 
this same expression refers to all the events which had just passed. Luke gives the 
saying of this Gentile in the simplest form : This was a righteous man ; that is to say : 
He was no malefactor, as was supposed. But this homage implied something more ; 
for Jesus having given Himself out to be the Son of God, if He was a righteous man, 
must be more than that. Such is the meaning of the centurion's exclamation in the 
narratives of Matthew and Mark. Twice on the cross Jesus had called God Bis 
Father ; the centurion could therefore well express himself thus : He was really, as 
He alleged, the Son of God ! As the centurion's exclamation is an anticipation of 
the conversion of the Gentile world, so the consternation which takes possession of the 
Jews on witnessing the scene (ver. 48) anticipates the final penitence and conversion 
of this people (comp. Zech. 12 : 10-14.) The word Oeopia, that sight, alludes to the 
feeling of curiosity which had attracted the multitude. 

Among the acquaintance of Jesus spoken of ver. 49 there must have been some of 
His apostles. This is the necessary inference from the word tt&vtes, all. Manpo'dev, 

* Ver. 47. &. B. D. L. R, edo$a&v instead of edofroev. Ver. 48. 7 Mjj. Syr., 
QeoprjaavTeS instead of OeopovvTeS. &. A. B. C. D. L. some Mnn. omit eavruv. Ver. 
49. A. B. L. P. 2 Mnn. , avru instead of avrov after yvuaroi, &. B. D. L. 10 Mnn. add 

aw before fiatcpoQev. 






COMMEKTAKY CW ST. LUKE. 497 

afar off, discovers the fear which prevailed among them. John and Mary had come 
nearer the cross (John 19 : 26, 27). Luke does not name till later any of the women 
present. Matthew and Maik here designate Mary Magdalene, of whom John also 
speaks ; Mary the mother of James and Joses, probably the same whom John calls 
Mary the wife of Cleopas, and aunt of Jesus ; with the mother of the sons of Zebedee, 
whom Mark calls Salome, and whom John leaves unmentioned, as he does when 
members of his own family are in question. The Syn. do not speak of the mother of 
Jesus. "We ought probably to take in its literal sense the words : " From that hour 
that disciple took her unto his own home" (John 19 : 27). The heart of Mary was 
broken on hearing the deeply tender words which Jesus had spoken to her, and she 
withdrew that same hour, so that she was not present at the end of the crucifixion, 
when the friends of Jesus and the other women came near. EioriiKEicav, they stood, is 
opposed to v7r£oTpe(f>ov, they returned (ver. 48). While the people were leaving the 
cross, His friends assembled in sight of Jesus. The words : beholding these things, 
refer not only to the circumstances attending the death of Jesus, but also, and above 
all, to the departure of the terrified multitude. This minute particular, taken from 
the immediate impression of the witnesses, betrays a source in close connection with 
the fact. 

Vers. 50-54.* The Burial of Jesus. — According to John, the Jewish authorities 
requested Pilate to have the bodies removed before the beginning of the next day, 
which was a Sabbath of extraordinary solemnity. For though Jesus and his compan- 
ions in punishment were not yet dead, and though the law Deut. 21 : 22 did not here 
apply literally, they might have died before the end of the day which was about to 
begin, and the day be polluted thereby all the more, because, it being a Sabbath, the 
bodies could not be removed. The crucifragium, ordered by Pilate, was not meant 
to put the condemned immediately to death, but only to make it certain, which 
allowed of their being taken from the cross. Thus is explained the wonder of Pilate, 
when Joseph of Arimathea informed him that Jesus was already dead (Mark 15 : 44). 
The secret friends of our Lord show themselves at the time of His deepest dishonor. 
Already the word finds fulfilment (2 Cor. 5 : 14) # : " The love of Christ constraineth 
us." Each evangelist characterizes Joseph in his own way. Luke: a counsellor 
good and just ; he is the tcaXbs nayaBoS, the Greek ideal. Mark : an honorable 
counsellor ; the Roman ideal. Matthew : a rich man ; is this not the Jewish 
ideal? Luke, moreover, brings out the fact, that Joseph had not agreed 
to the sentence (iSovl^), nor to the odious plan (7rpa%ei) by which Pilate's con- 
sent had been extorted. 'Api/uaQala is the Greek form of the name of the town 
Ramathaim ' v l Sam. 1 : 1), Samuel's birthplace, situated in Mount Ephraim, and con- 
sequently beyond the natural limits of Judea. But since the time spoken of in 1 
Mace. 11 : 34, it had been reckoned to this province ; hence the expression : a city of 
the Jews. As to Joseph, he lived at Jerusalem ; for he had a sepulchre there. The 
received reading oS ndi npoaedexero koc avroS, who also himself waited, is probably the 

* Ver. 51. &. B. C. D. L. It aU i., oS TzpoceSexeTo instead of oS mi irpoceSexero (V. 
some Mnn. Syr.) ; instead of oS mi avroc irpooedexeTo (6 Mjj. 15 Mnn.) ; instead of os 
mi rrpooedexETo mi avroc (T. R., with 9 Mjj.) ; instead of oS npoaedex^TO mi avroS (sev- 
eral Mnn. It ali< >. Vg.). Ver. 53. &. B. C. D. L. some Mnn. It ali i. Vg. omit avro after 
mSe^uv. &. B. C. D. ItP leri i ue , Vg., avTov .instead of avro. &. B. D. L. 3 Mnn., ovnu 
instead of ovdeno). Ver. 54. &. B. C. L. 2 Mnn. ltP leri i ue , Vg., Trapaoicevijg instead of 
TrapaoKevij. 16 Mjj. the most of the Mnn. omit mi before aa^arov, which is read by 
&. B. C. L. some Mnn. Syr. ItP leri< i ue , Vg. 



498 COMMENTARY OH ST. LUKE. 

true one ; it has been variously modified, because the relation of the also himself to 
the other friends of Jesus who were previously mentioned (ver. 49) was not under- 
stood ; by the double nai, Luke gives prominence to the believing character of 
Joseph, even when no one suspected it. 

Mark (15 : 46) informs us that the shroud in which the body was wrapped was 
bought at the same time by Joseph. How could such a purchase be made if the day 
was Sabbatic, if it was the 15th Nisan V Langen answers that Ex. 12 : 16 made a 
difference, so far as the preparation of food was concerned, between the 15th Nisan 
and the Sabbath properly so called, and that this difference might have extended to 
other matters, to purchases for example ; that, besides, it was not necessary to pay 
on the same day. But the Talmud reverses this supposition. It expressly stipulates 
that when the 14th Nisan fell on the Sabbath day, it was lawful on that day to make 
preparation for the morrow, the 15th (" Mischna Pesachim," iii. 6 et al.), thus sacri- 
ficing the sacredness of the Sabbath to that of the feast day. Could the latter have 
been less holy ! There is no ground for alleging that the authorization of Ex. 12 
extended beyond the strict limits of the text. 

According to the Syn., the circumstance which determined the use of this sepul- 
chre was, that it belonged to Joseph. According to John, it was its nearness to the 
place of punishment, taken in connection with the approach of the Sabbath. But 
those two circumstances are so far from being in contradiction, that the one 
apart from the other would have no value. What influence could the ap- 
proach of the Sabbath have had in the choice of this rocky sepulchre, if it had 
not belonged to one of the friends of Jesus ? The Syn. do not speak of the part 
taken by Nicodemus in the burial of Jesus. This particular, omitted by tradition, 
has been restored by John. It is of no consequence whether we read in ver. 54, 
7rapaoKevi}S or napaotievrj. The important point is, whether this name, which means 
preparation, denotes here the eve of the weekly Sabbath (Friday), or that of the Pass- 
over day (the 14th Nisan). Those who allege that Jesus was crucified on the 15th 
take it in the first sense ; those who hold it to have been on the 14th, in the second. 
The text in itself admits of both views. But in the context, how can it be held, we 
would ask with Caspari (p. 172), that the holiest day of the feast of the year, the 15th 
Nisan, was here designated, like any ordinary Friday, the preparation for the Sab- 
bath ? No doubt Mark, in the parall. , translates this word by Trpooafifiarov, day before 
Sabbath (15 : 42). But this expression may mean in a general way : the eve of Sab- 
bath or of any Sabbatic day whatever. And in the present case it must have this lat- 
ter sense, as appears from the tn si,, because. Mark means to explain, by the Sabbatic 
character of the following day, why they made haste to bury the body : it was the 
pro- Sabbath. "What meaning would this reason have had, if the very day on which 
they were acting had been a Sabbatic day ? Matt. 27 : 62 offers an analogous expres- 
sion. In speaking of Saturday, the morrow after the death of Jesus, Matthew says : 

■ the next day, that followed the preparation." We have already called attention to 
this expression (" Comment, sur Jean," t. ii. p. 638). " If this Saturday," says Caspari 
(p. 77), " had been an ordinary Sabbath, Matthew would not have designated it in so 
strange a manner. The preparation in question must have had a character quite 
different from the preparation for the ordinary Sabbath. This preparation day must 
have been so called as a day of special preparation, as itself a feast day ; it must have 
been the 14th Nisan. " The term enqueue, teas beginning to shine, is figurative. It is 
taken from the natural day, and applied here to the civil day. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 499 

Vers. 55, 56.* The embalming of Jesus having been done in haste, the women 
proposed to complete it. This same evening, therefore, they prepared the odorifer- 
ous herbs (apufiara) and the perfumed oils (fivpa) necessary for the purpose ; and the 
hour of the Sabbath being come, they rested. Once more, what would be the mean- 
ing of this conduct if that very day had been Sabbatic, the 15th Nisan ? Evidently it 
was yet the 14th ; and the 15th, which was about to begin, was at once the weekly 
Sabbath amd the first Passover day, and so invested with double sacredness, as John 
remarks (19 : 31). Mark says, somewhat differently (16 : 1), that they made then- 
preparations when the Sabbath was past, that is to say, on the morrow in the evening. 
No doubt they had not been able to finish them completely on the Friday before six 
o'clock afternoon. The naL of the T. R. before yvvaliceS, ver. 55, is evidently a cor- 
ruption of al. It has been asked how, if Jesus predicted His resurrection, the 
women could have prepared to embalm His body. But we have seen the answer in 
the case of the converted thief : they expected a glorious reappearance of Jesus from 
heaven after His death, but not the reviving of His body laid in the tomb. A feel- 
ing of pious and humble fidelity is expressed in the conduct of the women, as it is 
described by Luke in the touching words : " And they rested according to the com- 
mandment." It was the last Sabbath of the old covenant. It was scrupulously re- 
spected. 

Conclusion regarding the Day of Jesus' Death. 

It follows from the exegesis of chaps. 22 and 23, that according to the Syn., as 
well as according to John, the day of Jesus' death was not the first and great day of 
the paschal feast (15th Nisan), but the day before (or preparation), the 14th Nisan, 
which that year was a Friday, and so, at the same time, the preparation for the 
Sabbath. Hence it follows also that the last feast of Jesus took place on the 
evening between the 13th and 14th, and not on the evening between the 14th 
and 15th, when the whole people celebrated the paschal feast. Such is the result to 
which we are brought by all the passages examined : 22 : 7-9, 10-15, 66 ; 23 : 26, 
53, 54, 55, 56 ; Matt. 26 : 5, 18 ; 27 : 62 ; Mark 14 : 2 ; 15 : 42, 46 ; so that, on the 
main question, it appears to us that exegetically there can be no doubt, seeing that 
our four Uospel accounts present no real disagreement. The fact, therefore, stands as 
follows : On the 13th, toward evening, Jesus sent the two disciples most worthy of 
His confidence to prepare the paschal feast ; in the opinion of all the rest, this was 
with a view to the following evening, when the national feast was to be celebrated. 
But Jesus knew that by that time the hour would be past for His celebrating this 
last Passover. This same evening, therefore, some hours after having sent the two 
disciples. He seated Himself at the table prepared by them and by the master of the 
house. There was in this a surprise for the apostles, which is probably referred to by 
Luke 22 : 15 : " With desire 1 have desired to eat this passover with you before 1 
suffer." Above all, it was a surprise to Judas, who had resolved to give Him up 
this same evening. This anticipation on the part of Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath 
and of the whole law (6 : 5), involved nothing less than the abrogation of the paschal 
feast and of the ancient covenant. 

This exegetical result agrees fully with Jewish tradition. In "Bab. Sanhedr. " 
43. 1, it is expressly said (Caspari, p. 156) : " Jesus was executed on the eve of the 
Passover. A public crier had proclaimed for seventy days that a man was to be 
stoned for having bewitched Israel and seduced it into schism ; that he who had any- 
thing to say for his justification should present himself and testify for him ; but no 
one appeared to justify him. Then they crucified him on the evening [the eve] of the 
Passover (nOD 21JJ2)*" This last expression can denote nothing but the evening 

* Ver. 55. Instead of tie /cat yvvcuices, which T. R. reads, with some Mnn., the Mjj. 
read either 6e yvvatneS or 6e at yvvatKeS. 



oOO COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

preceding the Passover, as rQttfH mj7» evening of the Sabbath, never denotes any- 
thing but Friday evening. This view seems also to be that which prevailed in the 
Church in the most ancient times, as we see from Clement of Alexandria, who lived 
when primitive tradition was not yet effaced, and who professes without hesitation 
the same opinion. It is, moreover, in keeping with the admirable symbolism which 
is the character of all God's works. Jesus dies on the afternoon of the 14th, at the 
very moment when the paschal lamb was slain in the temple. He rests in the tomb 
on the 15th Nisan, a day doubly Sabbatic that year, as being Saturday and the first 
day of the feast. This day of rest, so exceptionally solemn, divides the first creation, 
which is terminating, from the second, which is beginning. Jesus rises on the mor- 
row, 16th Nisan, the very day on which there was offered in the temple the first 
sheaf cut in the year, the first fruits of the harvest. Is it not to this symbolism that 
St. Paul himself alludes in the two passages : ' ' Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for 
us" (1 Cor. 5:7); and, " Every one in his own order ; Christ, the first fruits ; after- 
ward they that are His, at His coming' ' (1 Cor. 15 : 23) ? It is probable, also, that 
if St. Paul had regarded the night on which Jesus instituted the Holy Supper as the 
same on which Israel celebrated the Passover, he would not have designated it 
simply (1 Cor. 11 : 23) as that on which our Lord was betrayed. 

The only further question which may yet appear doubtful, is whether the com- 
pilers of our three synoptic narratives had a clear view, of the real course of events. 
They have faithfully preserved to us the facts and sayings which help us to make it 
out ; but is there not some confusion in their minds ? Was not this last feast of 
Christ, which had all the features of an ordinary paschal feast, and in which He had 
instituted the supper as the counterpart of the Israelitish rite, confounded in the 
traditional accounts with the national paschal feast ? And has not this confusion ex- 
ercised a certain influence on the account of the Syn. ? This, at least, is the differ- 
ence which exists between them and John : they relate simply, without concerning 
themselves about the difference between this last supper and the Israelitish paschal 
feast ; while John, who sees this confusion gaining ground, expressly emphasizes 
the distinction between the two.* 

As to the bearing of this question on the paschal controversy of the second cen- 
tury, and on the authenticity, of the Gospel of John, it may be explained in two 
ways : Either the event celebrated by the Asiatics was, as is natural, the death of 
Christ (Steitz), and not the fact of the institution of the Supper (Baur), and hence it 
would follow, in entire harmony with the fourth Gospel, that they regarded the 14th, 
and not the 15th, as the day of the crucifixion (this is the explanation which we have 
advocated in the " Comment, sur Jean") ; or it may be maintained, as is done by M. 
E. Schiirer (whose dissertation on this question f leaves little to be desired), that the 
Asiatic rite was determined neither by the day on which the Holy Supper was insti- 
tuted, nor even by that on which Christ died, but solely by the desire of keeping up 
in the churches of Asia,, for the Holy Easter Supper, the day on which the law or- 
dained the paschal feast to be celebrated. In this case, the Asiatic rite neither contra- 
dicted nor confirmed John's narrative ; it had no connection with it. 

From this determination of the day of the month on which Jesus died, it remains 
for us to draw a conclusion regarding the year of that event. The result obtained is, 
that in that year the 13th Nisan, the preparation for the Passover and the day of the 
crucifixion, fell on a Friday, and the day of the Passover, 14th Nisan, on a Saturday. 
Now, it follows from the calculations of Wurm (Bengel's " Archiv." 1816. ii.), and of 
Oudemann, Professor of Astronomy at Utrecht (" Revue de theol." 1863, p. 221), 
whose results differ only by a few minutes, that in the years from 28 to 36 of our era, 
in one of which the death of Jesus must have fallen, the day of the Passover, 15th 
Nisan, was a Saturday only in 30 and 34 (783 and 787 A.u.c.)4 If, then, Jesus was 

* We have the satisfaction of finding ourselves at one in this view with Krummel 
in the Litteraturblatt of Darmstadt, February, 1868, with M. C. Baggesen (" Der 
Apostel Johannes, sein Leben und seine Schriften," 1869), and (in substance) with 
Caspari. 

+ " De controversiis paschalibus sec. post. Chr. n. seculo exortis," Leipzig, 1869. 

\ Sometimes Wurm's calculation is cited to an opposite effect. But it must not 
be forgotten that he dates, as we do, from midnight, instead of making the days begin 



COMMENTARY 02*" ST. LUKE. 501 

born (p. 126) at the end of 749 or the beginning of 750 A.TJ.C, 3-4 years before 
our era ; if He was baptized in the course of His 30th year (Luke 3 : 23) : if His 
ministry lasted about 2£ years (John) ; if, finally, His death took place, as all the 
evangelists attest, at the feast of Passover : this Passover must have been that of the 
year 30 of our era (783 a.u.c). The result of astronomical calculation thus confirms 
the Gospel statements, especially those of John. And we can fix the date of Christ's 
death on Friday the 14th Nisan (7th April) of the year 30.* 

as the Jews did, at sunset. This circumstance exercises a decisive influence in this 
case (Caspari, p. 16). 

* Caspari places the baptism of Jesus as we do, in 28, and His death in 30. Keim : 
the beginning of His ministry, in the spring of 34 ; the death of John the Baptist, in 
the autumn of 34 ; the death of Jesus, at the Passover of 35. Hitzig : the» death of 
Jesus, in 36. 



SEVENTH PART. 



THE KESUKKECTION AND ASCENSION. 

Chap. 24. 

It is in this part of the Gospel narrative that the four accounts diverge most. As 
friends, who for a time have travelled together, disperse at the end of the journey to 
take each the way which brings him to his own home, so in this last part, the peculiar 
object of each evangelist exercises an influence on his narrative yet more marked than 
before. Luke, who wishes to describe the gradual growth of Christian work from 
Nazareth to Rome, prepares, in those last statements of his Gospel, for the descrip- 
tion of the apostolic preaching and of the founding of the Church, which he is about 
to trace in the Acts. Matthew, whose purpose is to prove the Messianic claims of 
Jesus, closes his demonstration by narrating the most solemn appearance of the risen 
Jesus, when He made known to the Church His elevation to universal sovereignty, 
and installed the apostles in their mission as conquerors of the world. John, who 
relates the history of the development of faith in the founders of the gospel, side by 
side with that of incredulity in Israel, closes his narrative with the appearance whic h 
led to the profession of Thomas, and which consummated the triumph of faith over 
unbelief in the apostolic circle. It is vain to mutilate the conclusion of Mark's work. 
We find here again the characteristic feature of his narrative. He had, above all, ex- 
hibited the powerful activity of our Lord as a divine evangelist : the last words of his 
account, 16 : 19, 20, show us Jesus glorified, still co-operating from heaven with 
His apostles. 

Each evangelist knows well the point at which he aims, and hence the reason that 
the narratives diverge more as they reach the conclusion. The special differences in 
the accounts of the resurrection are partly the effect of this principal divergence. Of 
the four accounts, the two extremes are that of Matthew, which puts the whole stress 
on the great Galilean appearance, and that of Luke, which relates only the appear- 
ances in Judea. The other two are, as it were, middle terms. Mark (at least from 
16 : 9) is dependent on the former two, and oscillates between them. John really 
unites them by relating, like Luke, the appearances at Jerusalem, while mentioning 
also, like Matthew, a remarkable appearance in Galilee. If, indeed, chap. 21 was not 
composed by John, it certainly proceeds from a tradition emanating from this apostle. 
The fact of appearances having taken place both in Judea and Galilee is also con- 
firmed indirectly by Paul, as we shall see. 

The account of Luke contains : 1. The visit of the women to the tomb (vers. 1-7) 
2. Peter's visit to the tomb (vers. 8-12). 3. The appearance to the two disciples on 
the way to Emmaus (vers. 13-32). 4. The appearance to the disciples on the evening 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 503 

of the resurrection day (vers. 33-43). 5. The last instructions of Jesus (vers. 44-49). 
6. The ascension (vers. 50-53). 

1. Hie Women at the Sepulchre : vers. 1-7. — Vers. 1-7.* The women play the first, 
if not the principal, part in all those accounts ; a special duty called them to the 
tomb. They were, according to Matt. 28 : 1, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary 
(the aunt of Jesus) ; according to Mark (16 : 1), those same two, and Salome the 
mother of James and John ; according to Luke (ver. 10), the first two, along with 
the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward (8 : 3). John names only Mary Magdalene. But 
does not Mary herself allude to the presence of others when she says (ver. 2) : " We 
know not where they have laid Him "? If John names her so specially, it is because 
he intends to give anew the account of the appearance which tradition had either 
omitted or generalized (Matthew), and which as, having taken place first, had a cer- 
tain importance. As to the time of the women's arrival, Luke says, Very early in 
Hie morning ; Matthew, b\\>l cafifiaToVy which signifies, not Sabbath evening, but (like 
the phrases 6ip£ /ivar^piuv, peractis mysteriis, 6-ip£ rpuiK&v, after the Trojan war ; see 
Bleek) : after the Sabbath, in the night which followed. By the ry h-KKpucKovcv, Mat- 
thew expresses the fact that it was at the time of daybreak. Mark says, with a slight 
difference, which only proves the independence of his narrative (to ver. 8), At the 
rising of the sun. The object of the women was, according to Matthew, to visit the 
sepulchre ; according to the other two, to embalm the body. 

The fact of the resurrection itself is not described by any evangelist, no one 
having been present. Only the Risen One was seen. It is of Him that the evangel- 
ists bear witness. Matthew is the one who goes furthest back. An earthquake, clue 
to the action of an angel {yap), shakes and dislodges the stone ; the angel seats him- 
self upon it, and the guards take to flight. Undoubtedly, it cannot be denied that 
this account, even in its style (the parallelism, ver. 3), has a poetic tinge. But some 
such fact is necessarily supposed by what follows. Otherwise, how would the 
sepulchre have been found open on the arrival of the women V It is at this point that 
the other accounts begin. In John, Mary Magdalene sees nothing except the stono 
which has been rolled away ; she runs instantly to apprise Peter and John. It may 
be supposed that the other women did not accompany her, and that, having come 
near the sepulchre, they were witnesses of the appearance of the angel ; then, that 
they returned home. Not till after that did Mary Magdalene come back with Peter 
and John (John 21 : 1-9). It might be supposed, indeed, that this whole account 
given by the Syn. regarding the appearance of the angel (Matthew and Mark), or of 
the two angels (Luke), to the women, is at bottom nothing more than the fact of the 
appearance of the angels to Mary related by John (20 : 11-13) and generalized by tra- 
dition. But vers. 22, 23 of Luke are not favorable to this view. Mary Magdalene, 
having seen the Lord immediately after the appearance of the angels, could not have 
related the first of those facts without also mentioning the second, which was far 
more important. 

In the angel's address, as reproduced by the Syn., everything differs, with the 

* The mss. are divided between /3cz0eoS (T. R., Byz.) and padeos (Alex.), and be- 
tween fiVTj/j.a (T. B.) and p.vT]p.tuiv (taken from the parall.). 5*. B. C. L. 2 Mnn. 
Jtpierique^ y^ om it the words kcii rivet ovv avraiS. Ver. 4. 8. B. C. D. L., airopeioQai 
instead of (ha-rropnaOai. ft. B. D. It. Vg., ev eoOtjti aa-pa-KTovar} instead of ev eaOrjceatv 
aoTpa-KTovcaiq. Ver. 5. The mss. are divided between to npoou-Kov (T. R., Byz.) and 
ra Trpoocjira (Alex.). 



504 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

single exception of the words which are identical in all, He is not here. A common 
document is inadmissible. In Luke, the angel recalls to the memory of the women 
former promises of a resurrection. In Matthew and Mark, he reminds them, while 
calling on them to remind the disciples, of the rendezvous which Jesus had appointed 
for His own in Galilee before His death. Upouyei, He goeth before, like an invisible 
shepherd walking at the head of His visible flock. Already, indeed, before His death 
Jesus had shown His concern to reconstitute His Galilean Church, and that in Galilee 
itself (Mark 14 : 28 , Matt. 26 : 32) ; vfids you, cannot apply to the apostles only to the 
exclusion of the women ; it embraces all the faithful. It is also certain that the last 
words. There ye shall see Him, do not belong to the sayings of Jesus which the women 
are charged lo report to the disciples. It is the angel himself who speaks, as is 
proved by the expression, Lo, 1 have told you (Matthew) ; and more clearly still by 
the words, As He said unto you (Mark). This gathering, which Jesus had in view 
even in Gethsemane, at the moment when He saw them ready to be scattered, and 
which forms the subject of the angel's message immediately after the resurrection, 
was intended to be the general reunion of all the faithful, who for the most part 
were natives of Galilee, and who formed the nucleus of the future Church of Jesus. 
After that, we shall not be surprised to hear St. Paul speak (1 Cor. 15) of an assem- 
blage of more than 500 brethren, of whom the 120 Galileans of Pentecost were the 
elite (Acts 1 : 15, 2 : 7) ; comp. also the expression my brethren (John 20 : 17), which 
certainly includes more than the eleven apostles. There follows in Matthew an 
appearance of Jesus to the women just as they are leaving the tomb. It seems to me 
that this appearance can be no olher than that which, according to John, was granted 
to Mary Magdalene. Tradition had applied it to the women in general. Comp. the 
expressions, They embraced His feet (Matthew), with the words, Touch me not, in 
John ; Tell my brethren (Matthew), with Go to my brethren and say unto them, in 
John. Finally, it must be remarked that in the two accounts this appearance of 
Jesus immediately follows that of the angel. In Matthew's mind, does the promise, 
There shall they see me, exclude all appearance to the apostles previous to that which 
is here announced ? If it is so, the contradiction between this declaration and the 
accounts of Luke and John is glaring. But even in Matthew, the expression, There 
[in Galilee] ye shall see me, ver. 7, is immediately followed by an appearance of Jesus 
to those women, and that in Judea (ver. 9) ; this fact proves clearly that we must 
not give such a negative force to Matthew's expression. What we have here is tlte 
affirmation of a solemn reunion which shall take place in Galilee, and at which not 
only the apostles, but the women and all the faithful, shall be present. That does 
not at all exclude special appearances granted to this or that one before the appear- 
ance here in question. 

The following was therefore the course of events : Mary Magdalene comes to the 
sepulchre with other women. On seeing the stone rolled away, she runs to inform 
the disciples ; the other women remain ; perhaps others besides arrived a little later 
(Mark). The angel declares to them the resurrection, and they return. Mary Mag- 
dalene comes back with Peter and John ; then, having remained alone after their 
departure, she witnesses the first appearance of Jesus risen from the dead. 

2. Visit of Peter to the Sepulchre : vers. 8-12.— Vers. 8-12.* As we have found the 

* Ver. 10. 13 Mjj. 45 Mnu. It ali( J. omit at before eltyov. Ver. 11. &. B. D. L. 
Syr. ItP leri q« e , ra prjfiara ravra instead of ra prjfiara avruv. Ver. 12. This verse is en- 
tirely omitted by D abel Fuld. Syr hier . It is found in 19 Mjj. all the Mnn. Syr™'. 
Syi 8Ch . It ali( J. Sah. Cop. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 505 

account given, John 20 : 14-18, in Matthew's narrative of the appearance to the wom- 
en, so we recognize here the fact which is related more in detail in John 20 : 1-10. 
Luke says, ver. 9, that on returning from the sepulchre the women related what they 
had seen and heard, while, according to Mark (ver. 8), they kept silence. This con- 
tradiction is explained hy the fact that the two sayings refer to two different events : 
the first, to the account which Mary Magdalene gives to Peter and John, and which 
led them to the sepulchre (Luke, vers. 12 and 22-24) — a report which soon spread , 
among the apostles and all the disciples ; the other, to the first moments which fol- 
lowed the return of the other women, until, their fears having abated, they began to 4 
speak. But this contradiction in terms proves that at least up to ver. 8 Mark had 
not Luke before him. The a'L of the T. R, ver. 10, before fheyov is indispensable. 
The omission of ver. 12 in the Cantab, and some copies of the Latin and Syriac trans- 
lations appeared so serious a matter to Tischendorf that he rejected this verse in his 
eighth edition. But if it were an interpolation taken from John, it would not have 
mentioned Peter only, but Peter and John (or the other disciple). And the apparent 
contradiction would have been avoided between this verse and ver. 24, where it is not 
an apostle, but certain of them (rives), who repair to the sepulchre. The extreme 
caprice and carelessness which prevail throughout cod. D and the documents of the 
Itala which are connected with it are well known. The entire body of the other Mjj. 
and of the Mnn., as well as most of the copies of the ancient translations, support 
the T. R Some such historical fact as that mentioned in this verse is required by 
the declaration of the two disciples (ver. 24). There is, besides, a striking resem- 
blance between the account of John and that of Luke. The terms 7rapaxvipa< , 
obovia xe/juera, npoS eavrov a7te?.6e?v, are found in both. 

3. TJte Appearance on the way to Emmaus: vers. 13-32. — Vers. 13-82.* Here is 
one of the most admiral le pieces in Luke's Gospel. As John alone has preserved to 
us the account of the appearance to Mary Magdalene, so Luke alone has transmitted 
to us that of the appearance granted to the two disciples of Emmaus. The summary 
of this event in Mark (16 : 12, 13) is evidently nothing more than an extract from Luke. 

Vers. 13-16. The Historical Introduction. — 'ISov, behold, prepares us for something 
unexpected. One of the two disciples was called Cleopas (ver. 18). This name is an 
abbreviation of Cleopatros, and not, like KXconai (John 19 : 25), the reproduction of 
the Hebrew name "VC?n> which -Luke always translates by 'AXcpatoS (6 : 15 ; Acts 
1 : 13). This name, of Greek origin, leads to the supposition that this disciple was a 
proselyte come to the feast. As to the other, it has been thought (Theopbylact, 
Lange) that it was Luke himself — first, because he is not named ; and next, because 
of the peculiarly dramatic character of the narrative following (comp. especially ver. 
32). Luke 1 : 2 proves nothing against this view. For the author distinguishes him- • 
self in this passage, not from witnesses absolutely, but from those who were wit- ' 
nesses from the beginning ; and this contact for a moment did not give him the right ' 
to rank himself among the authors of the Gospel tradition. Jesus, by manifesting 

* Ver. 13. ft. I. K. N. TT. some Mnn., eKarov efynovTa instead of E^rjKovra. Ver. 
17. & A. (?) B. Le., Kai earaOrjaav oKvOpioiroi instead of kcli ears oKvOpconoi. Ver. 18. 
2*. B. L. N. X.. ovofiaTL instead of u ovoua. AH the Mjj., A. exeepted, omit ev before 
lepovaaArifi. Ver. 19. ft. B. I. L., va^aprivov instead of vafapcuov. Ver. 21. ft. D. B. 
L. add Kai after aTJaye. ft. B. L. Syr. omit orjiienov. Ver. 28 ft. A. B. D. L. Tt Illil i., 
■KpoaeiroLriaaTO instead of TrponenoieiTn. Ver. 29. ft. B. L. some Mnn. lt ali i. Vg. add 
yd?] after k£k?.ikev. Ver. 32. ft. B. D. L. omit nat before cjS (hrjvoiyev. 



506 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

Himself to these two men, accomplished for the first time what He had announced to 
the Greeks, who asked to speak wilh Him in the temple : " If I be lifted up from the 
earth, I will draw all men unto me" (John 12 : 82, 33). Emmaus is not, as was held 
by Eusebius and Jerome, Ammaus (later Nieopolis), the modern Anwas, situated to 
the S.E. of Lydda ; for this town lies 180 furlongs from Jerusalem, more than 
double the distance mentioned by Luke, and such a distance is incompatible with our 
account (ver. 23). Caspar! (p. 2o7) has been led to the conviction previously ex- 
pressed by Sepp, that this place is no other than the village Ammaus mentioned by 
Josephus (Bell. Jud. vii. 6. 6), vrhich Titus assigned to 8u0 veterans of his army to 
found a colony. This place, stuated E.S.E. from Jerusalem, is 'called even at the 
present day Kolonieh, and is distant exactly 60 furlongs from Jerusalem. In Succa 
iv. 5, the Talmud says that there, at Mauza (with the article : Hania Mauza), they go 
to gather the green boughs for the feast of Tabernacles ; elsewhere it is said that 
" Mauza is Kolonieh." The reasoning, 6v^rfrelv (ver. 15), bore, according to ver. 
21, on the force of the promises of Jesus. The kuparovrro, were holden (ver. 16), is 
explained by the concurrence of two factors : the iucredulity of the disciples regard- 
ing the bodily resurrection of Jesus (comp. ver. 25), and a mysterious change which 
had been wrought on the person of our Lord (comp. Mark 16 : 12 : kv kzepct juopcpy, 
and John 20 : 15, supposing Him to be the gardener . . .). 

Vers. 17-19&. Beginning of the Conversation. — Ver. 17. Jesus generally interrogates 
before instructing. As a good teacher, in order to be heard, He begins by causing 
his auditors to speak (John 1 : 38). The Alex, reading at the end of ver. 17, allowed 
by Tischendorf (8th ed.) : and stood sad, borders on the absurd. Ver. 18. MdvoS 
belongs to both verbs, 7tapoiH8K and ovk eyr&S, together. They take Jesus for 
one of those numerous strangers who, like themselves, are temporarily sojourning at 
Jerusalem. An inhabitant of the city would not have failed to know these things ; 
and in their view, to know them was to be engrossed with them. 

Vers. 195-24. Account of the Two Disciples. — Jesus has now brought them to the 
point where He wished, namely, to open up their heart to Him ; 6vv ita6i rovroii 
(ver. 21), in spite of the extraordinary qualities described ver. 19. 'Ayei may be 
taken impersonally, as in Latin, agit diem, for agiiur dies. But it may also have 
Jesus for its subject, as in the phrase ayei dexarov etoS, " he is in his tenth year." 
But along with those causes of discouragement, there are also grounds of hope. This 
opposition is indicated by aXXct nod, " But indeed there are also . . ." (ver. 22). 
Ver. 23. Asyov6ai, oi \iyov6iv, hearsay of a hearsay. This form shows how little 
faith they put in all those reports (comp. ver. 11). Ver. 24. Peter, then, was not the 
only one, as he seemed to be from ver. 12. Here is an example, among many others, 
of the traps which are unintentionally laid for criticism by the simple and artless 
style of our sacred historians. On each occasion they say sirnply what the context 
calls for, omitting everything which goes beyond, but sometimes, as here, adding it 
themselves later (John 3 : 22 ; comp. with 4 : 2). The last words, Him they saw not, 
prove that the two disciples set out from Jerusalem between the return of the women 
and that of Peter and John, and even of Mary Magdalene. 

Vers. 25-27. The Teaching of Jesus.— The xai avroi, then He (ver. 25), shows 
that His turn has now come. They have said everything — they have opened their 
heart ; now it is for Him to fill it with new things. And first, in the way of rebuke 
(ver. 25). ''Avorjroi, fools, refers to the understanding ; fipadeiS, slow, to the heart. 
If they had embraced the living God with more fervent faith, the fact of the resur- 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 507 

rection would not have been so strange to their hopes (20 : 37, 38). Next, in the way 
of instruction (vers. 26 and 27). Ver. 26 is the central word of this narrative. The 
explanation of the edci, ought, was no doubt rather exegetical than dogmatical ; it 
turned on the text presented by the prophecies (ver. 27). Jesus had before Him a 
grand field, from the Protevangelium down to Mai. 4. In studying the Scriptures 
for Himself, He had found Himself in them everywhere (John 5 : 39, 40). He had 
now only to let this light which rilled His heart ray forth from Him. The second 
an 6 (ver. 27) shows that the demonstration began anew with every prophet. 

Vers. 28-32. Historical Conclusion. — "When Jesus made as if He would continue 
His journey, it was not a meie feint. He would have really gone, but for that sort of 
constraint which they exercised over Him. Every gift of God is an invitation to 
claim a greater {x^-9 lv ocvri x^9 iro ^i John 1 : 16). But most men stop very quickly 
on this way : and thus they never reach the full blessing (2 Kings 13 : 14-19). The 
verb xaraxA.iOr}vai, to sit down at table (ver. 30), applies to a common meal, and does 
not involve the idea of a Holy Supper. Acting as head of the family, Jesus takes the 
bread and gives thanks. The word 8ir/voix0i?6av, were opened (ver. 31), is contrasted 
with the preceding, were holden, ver. 16. It indicates a divine operation, which de- 
stroys the effect of the causes referred to, ver. 16. No doubt the influence exercised 
on their heart by the preceding conversation and by the thanksgiving of Jesus, as well 
as the manner in which He broke and distributed the bread, had prepared them for 
this awaking of the inner sense. The sudden disappearance of Jesus has a supernatu- 
ral character. His body was already in course of glorification, and obeyed more freely 
than before the will of the spirit. Besides, it must be remembered that Jesus, strictly 
speaking, was already no more loith them (ver. 44), and that the miracle consisted 
rather in His appearing than in His disappearing. The saying, so intimate in its char- 
acter, which is preserved ver. 32, in any case betrays a source close to the event itself ; 
tradition would not have invented such a saying. 

If we accept the view which recognizes Luke himself in the companion of Cleopas, 
we shall find ourselves brought to this critical Tesult, that each evangelist has left in 
a corner of his narrative a modest indication of his person : Matthew, in the publican 
whom Jesus removes by a word from his previous occupations ; Mark, in the youne 
man who flees, leaving his garment at Gelhsemane ; John, in the disciple designated 
as he whom Jesus loved ; Luke, in the anonymous traveller of Emmaus. 

4. Tlie Appearance to the Apostles : vers. 33-43. — Vers. 33-43.* The two travellers, 
immediately changing their intended route, return to Jerusalem, where they find the 
apostles assembled and full of joy. An appearance of Jesus to Peter had overcome 
all the doubts left by the accounts of the women. This appearance should probably 
be placed at the time when Peter returned home (ver. 12), after his visit to the tomb. 
Paul places it (1 Cor. 15) first of all. He omits Luke's first (the two going to Emmaus) 
and John's first (Mary Magdalene). For where apostolic testimony is in question as in 
that chapter, unofficial witnesses, not chosen (Acts 1 : 2), are left out of account 
Peter was nut at that time restored as an apostle (comp. John 21), but he received his 

* Ver. 33. &. B. D., Tfipoinfiivov^ instead of avvT/Opoirrfievov^. Ver. 36. D. It*"*, 
omit the words nat Aeyeu avroiS eiprjvt] v/xtv. Ver. 38. B. D. lip^'que^ ev Tr j K apiha in- 
stead of ev rati Kap<haiS, Ver. 39. IS. D. lr., capi<a<; instead of napna. Ver. 40. This 
veise is omitted by D. It ali( i. Syr cur . Ver. 42. 1*. A. B. D. L. II. Clemeut. Or. omit 
km (ito ueAiooiov Krjpiov, which is read by T. R. 12 Mjj. all the Mnn. Syr. It" 11 **. 
Justin, etc. 



508 COMMENTABY OK" ST. LUKE. 

pardon as a believer. If tradition had invented, would it not, above all, have 
imagined an appearance to John ? This account refers to the same appearance as 
John 20 : 19-23. The two Gospels place it on the evening of the resurrection day. 
The sudden appearance of Jesus, ver. 36, indicated by the words, He stood in the 
midst of them, is evidently supernatural, like His disappearance (ver. 81). lis miracu- 
lous character is expressed still more precisely by John, The doors were shut. The 
salutation would be the same in both accounts : Peace be unto you, were we not 
obliged to give the preference here to the text of the Cantab, and of some copies of 
the Itala, which rejects these words. The T. R. has probably been interpolated 
from John. The term itvsvjua (ver. 37) denotes the spirit of the dead returning with- 
out a body from Hades, and appearing in a visible form as umbra, <pavra6jua (Matt. 
14 : 26). This impression naturally arose from the sudden and miraculous appear- 
ance of Jesus. The 8ia.Aoyi6j.ioi, inward disputing 8 y are contrasted with the simple 
acknowledgment of Him who stands before them. At ver. 39, Jesus asserts His 
identity : " That it is 1 myself," and then His corporeity : " Handle me, and see." 
The sight of His hauds and feet proves those two propositions by the wounds, the 
marks of which they still bear. Ver. 40 is wanting in D. It al! i. It might be sus- 
pected that it is taken from John 20 : 20, if in this latter passage, instead of His feet, 
there was not His side. In vers. 41-43, Jesus gives them a new proof of His cor- 
poreity by eating meats which they had to offer Him. Their very joy prevented them 
from believing in so great a happiness, and formed an obstacle to their faith. Strauss 
finds a contradiction between the act of eating and the notion of a glorified body. 
But the body of Jesus was in a transition state. Our Lord Himself say3 to Mary 
Magdalene, " I am not yet asceuded . . . but I ascend" (John 20 : 17). On the 
one hand, then, He still had His terrestrial body. On the other, this body was al- 
ready raised to a higher condition. We have no experience to help us in forming a 
clear idea of this transition, any more than of its goal, the glorified body. The omis- 
sion of the words, and of an honeycomb, in the Alex., is probably due to the confusion 
of the ytai which precedes with that which follows. 

This appearance of Jesus in the midst of the apostles, related by John and Luke, 
is also mentioned by Mark (16 : 14) and by Paul (1 Cor. 15 : 5). But John alone dis- 
tinguishes it from that which took place eight days after in similar circumstances, 
and at which the doubts of Thomas were overcome. And would it be too daring to 
suppose that, as the first of those appearances was meant to gather together the apos- 
tles whom Jesus wished to bring to Galilee, the second was intended to complete this 
reunion, which was hindered by the obstinate resistance of Thomas ; consequently, 
that it was the unbelief of this disciple which prevented the immediate return of the 
apostles to Galilee, and forced them to remain at Jerusalem during the whole paschal 
week ! Jesus did not lead back the flock until He had the number completed : "Of 
those whom Thou gavest me none is lost." 

5. The last Instructions : vers. 44-49. — Vers. 44-49.* Meyer, Bleek, and others 

* Ver. 44. &. B. L. X. some Mnn. ltP leri< i ue , Vg., rcpoi avrovc instead of avroit. 8 
Mjj. some Mnn. omit \iov after Aoyot. Ver. 46. &. B C. D. L. lt,P lori( i ue , omit nai ovtuij 
6ei. after yzypcnxTcu. Ver. 47. &. B. Syr sch ., ;ie ravoiav etS afyecuv instead of fxeravoiav 
nai a(peoiv. &. B. C. L. N. X., ap^a/utvoi instead of apZa/uevov. Ver. 48. B. D. omit 
eare before tiaprvpes. Ver. 49. &. D. L. Syr seh . ItP I « ri 9««, Vg. omit idov. & c B. L. X. 
A., e^anoare7ilu instead of arzoareA/.u. &. B. C. D. L. Iipi^qu^ Vg. omit lepovaaArj/i 
after iroXei. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 509 

think that all the sayings which follow were uttered this same evening, and that the 
ascension itself must, according to Luke, have followed immediately, during the night 
or toward morning. Luke corrected himself later in the Acts, where, according to 
a more exact tradition, he puts an interval of forty days between the resurrection and 
the ascension.* A circumstance which might be urged in favor of this hypothesis is, 
that what Luke omits in the angel's message (ver. 6) is precisely the command to the 
disciples to return to Galilee. But, on the other hand : 1. May it not be supposed that 
Luke, having reached the end of the tirst part of his history, and having the inten- 
tion of repeating those facts as the point of departure for his second, thought it 
enough to state them in the most summary way ? 2. Is it probable that an author, 
when beginning the second part of a history, should modify most materially, without 
in the least apprising his reader, the recital of facts with which he has closed his 
first ? Would it not have been simpler and more honest on the part of Luke to cor- 
rect the last page of his first volume, instead of confirming it implicitly as he does, 
Acts 1:1,2? 3. The tote, then (ver. 45), may embrace an indefinite space of time. 
4. This more general sense harmonizes with the fragmentary character of the report 
given of those last utterances : Now He said unto them, ver. 44: and He said unto 
them, ver. 40. This inexact form shows clearly that Luke abandons narrative strictly 
so called, to give as he closes the contents of the last, sayings of Jesus, reserving to 
himself to develop later the histoiical account of those last da} _ s. 5. The author of 
our Gospel followed the same tradition as Paul (see the appearance to Peter, men- 
tioned only by Paul and Luke). It is, moreover, impossible, considering his relations 
to that apostle and to the churches of Greece, that he was not acquainted with the 
first Epistle to the Corinthians. Xow, in this epistle a considerable interval is neces- 
saril3 r supposed between the resurrection and the ascension, tirst because it mentions 
an appearance of Jesus to more than 500 brethren, which cannot have taken place on 
1he very day of the resurrection ; and next, because it expressly distinguishes two ap- 
pearances to the assembled apostles : the one undoubtedly that the account of which 
we have just been reading (1 Cor. 15 : 0) ; the other, which must have taken place 
later (ver. 7). These facts, irreconcilable with the idea attributed by Meyer and 
others to Luke, belonged, as Paul himself tells us, 1 Cor. 15 : 1-3, to the teaching 
generally received in the Church, to the xapa8o6i$. How could they have been 
unknown to such an investigator as Luke ? How could they have escaped him in 
his first book, and that to recur to him without his saying a word in the second? 
Luke therefore here indicates summarily the substance of the different instructions 
given by Jesus between His resurrection and ascension all comprised in the words of 
the Acts : " After that He had given commandments unto the apostles" (Acts 1 : 2). 
Ver. 44 relates how Jesus recalled to them His previous predictions regarding His 
death and resurrection, which fulfilled the prophecies of the O. T. Ovtoi ol Xoycn, 
an abridged phrase for tcxvtcx toTiv oi \6yoi : " These events which have just come 
to pass are those of which I told you in the discourses which you did not under- 
stand." The expression : while I teas yet with you, is remarkable ; for it proves that 
in the mind of Jesus, His separation from them was now consummated. Ho was 
with them only exceptionally ; His abode was elsewhere. The three terms ; Moses, 
Prop7iet8, Psalms, may denote the three parts of the O. T. among the Jews : the Penta- 

* This, be it remembered, is not our author's idea, but that of authors whose view 
lie proceeds to overthrow. He has a way of putting himself in the place of an 
opponent, for the momeut. — J. If. 



510 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

teuch ; the prophets, comprising, with the historical books (up to the exile), the pro- 
phetical books ; the Psalms, as representing the entire group of the hagiographa. 
Bleek rather thinks that Jesus mentions here only the books most essential from a 
prophetic point of view (nepi kjiov). If it is once admitted that the division of the 
canon which we have indicated existed so early as the time of Jesus, the first mean- 
ing is the more natural. 

Jesus closes these explanations by an act of power for which they were meant to 
prepare. He opens the inner sense of His apostles, so that the Scriptures shall hence- 
forth cease to be to tbem a sealed book. This act is certainly the same as that de- 
scribed by John in the words (20 : 22) : " And He breathed on them, saying, Receive 
yet he Holy Ghost." The only difference is, that John names the efficient cause, Luke 
the effect produced. The miracle is the same as that which Jesus shall one day work 
upon Israel collectively, when the veil shall be taken away (2 Cor. 3 : 15, 16). 

At ver. 46 there begins a new resume—that of the discourses of the risen Jesus 
referring to the future, as the preceding bore on the past of the kingdom of God. 
Kai elirev, and He said to them again. So true is it that Luke here gives the summary 
of the instructions of Jesus during the forty days (Acts 1 : 8), that we find the par- 
allels of these verses scattered up and down in the discourses which the other Gospels 
give between the resurrection and ascension. The words : should be preached among 
aU nations, recall Matt. 28 : 19 : " Go and teach all nations," and Mark 16 : 15 : " Go 
ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." The words : preach 
ing repentance and remission of sins, recall John 20 : 23 : " Whosesoever sins ye remit, 
they are remitted unto them." Yer. 46 forms the transition from the past to the 
future (ver. 47). 'On depends on : it was so, understood. The omission of ital ovruc 
e6ei,thus it behoved, by the Alex, cannot be justified ; it has arisen from negligence. 
Jesus declares two necessities : the one founded on prophecy {thus it is written), the 
other on the very nature of things {it behoved). The Alex, reading : repentance unto 
pardon, instead of repentance and pardon, has no internal probability. It would be a 
phrase without analogy in the whole of the N. T. The partic. dp^d/nevov is a neut. 
impersonal accusative, used as a gerund. The Alex, reading dp£d/uevoi is a correction. 
The thought that the kingdom of God must spread from Jerusalem belonged also to 
prophecy (Ps. 110 : 2, et al.) ; comp. Acts 1 : 8, where this idea is developed. 

To carry out this work of preaching, there must be men specially charged with it. 
These are the apostles (ver. 48). Hence the vjuds, ye, heading the proposition. The 
thought of ver. 48 is found John 15 : 2? : that of ver. 49, John 15 : 26. A testimony so 
important can only be given worthily and effectively with divine aid (ver. 49). 'Itiov, 
behold, expresses the unforeseen character of this intervention of divine strength ; and 
eytj, I, is foremost as the correlative of v,ueK, ye (ver. 48) : " Ye, on the earth, give 
testimony ; and I, from heaven, give you power to do so." When the disciples shall 
feel the spirit of Pentecost, they shall know that it is the breath of Jesus glorified, 
and for what end it is imparted to them. In the phrase, the promise of the Father, 
the word promise denotes the thing promised. The Holy Spirit is the divine promise 
par excellence. It is in this supreme gift that all others are to terminate. And this 
aid is so indispensable to them, that they must beware of beginning the work before 
having received it. The commaud to tarry in the city is no wise incompatible with a 
return of the disciples to Galilee between the resurrection and ascension. Everything 
depends on the time when Jesus spoke this word ; it is not specified in the context. 
According to Acts 1 : 4, it was on the day of His ascension that Jesus gave them 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 511 

This command. The Alex, reject the word Jerusalem, which indeed is not neces- 
sary after ver. 47. 

On the Resurrection of Jesus. 

I. The Fact of the Resurrection. — The apostles bore witness to the resurrection of 
Jesus, and on this testimony founded the Church. Such is the indubitable historical 
fact. Yet more : they did not do this as impostors. Strauss acknowledges this. 
And Volkmar, in his mystical language, goes the length of saying : " It is one of 
the most certain facts in the history of humanity, that shortly after His death on the 
cross, Jesus appeared to the apostles, risen from the dead, however we may under- 
stand the fact, which is without analogy in history" (" die Evangel." p. G12). Let 
us seek the explanation of the fact 

Did Jesus return to life from a state of lethargy, as Schleiermacher thought ? 
Strauss has once for all executed justice on this hypothesis. It cannot even be main- 
tained without destroying the moral character of our Lord (comp. our " Comm. sur 
Jean," t. ii. p. 660 et seq.). 

Were those appearances of Jesus to the first believers only visions resulting from 
their exalted stute of mind ? This is the hypothesis which Strauss, followed by nearly 
all modern rationalism, substitutes for that of Schleiermacher. This explanation 
breaks down before the following facts : 

1. The apostles did not in the least expect the body of Jesus to be restored to life. 
They confounded the resurrection, as Weizsacker says, with the Parousia. Now, 
such hallucinations would suppose, on the contrary, a lively expectation of the bodily 
reappearance of Jesus. 

2. So far was the imagination of the disciples from creating Ihe sensible presence 
of Jesus, that at the first they did not recognize Him (Mary Magdalene, the two of 
Emmaus). Jesus was certainly not to them an expected person, whose image was 
conceived in their own soul. 

3. We can imagine the possibility of a hallucination in one person, but not in two, 
twelve, and finally, five bundled ! especially if it be remembered that in the appear- 
ances described we have not to do with a simple luminous figure floating between 
heaven and earth, but wilh a person performing positive acts and uttering exact state- 
ments, which were heard by the witnesses. Or is the truth of the different accounts 
to be suspected? But they formed, from the begiuning, during the lifetime of the 
apostles and first witnesses, the substance of the public preaching, of the received 
tradition (1 Cor. 15). Thus we should be thrown back on the hypothesis of imposture. 

4. The empty tomb and the .disappearance of the body remain inexplicable. If, 
as the narratives allege, the body remained in the hands of Jesus' friends, the testi- 
mony which they gave to its resurrection is an imposture, a hypothesis already dis- 
carded. If it remained in the hands of the Jews, how did they not by this mode of con- 
viction overthrow the testimony of the apostles? Their mouths would have been 
closed much more effectually in this way than by scourging them. We shall not 
enter into the discussion of all Strauss's expedients to escape from this dilemma. 
They betray the spirit of special pleading, and can only appear to the unprejudiced 
mind in the light of subterfuges.* But Strauss attempts to take the offensive. 
Starting from Paul's enumeration of the various appearances (1 Cor. 15), he reasons 
thus : Paul himself had a vision on the way to Damascus ; now he put all the appear- 
ances which the apostles had on the same platform ; therefore they are all nothing 
but visions. This reasoning is a mere sophism. If Strauss means that Paul himself 
regarded the appearance which had converted him as a simple vision, it is easy to re- 
fute him. For what Paul wishes to demonstrate, 1 Cor. 15, is the bodily resurrection 
of believers, which he cannot do by means of the appearances of Jesus, unless he re- 
gards them all as bodily, the one as well as the other. If Strauss means, on the con- 
trary, that the Damascus appearance was really nothing else than a vision, though 
Paul took it as a reality, the conclusion which he draws from this mistake of Paul's, 

* In opposition to Strauss's supposition, that the body of Jesus was thrown to the 
dunchill, we set this fact of public notoriety in the time of St. Paul : "He was 
buried "(1 Cor. 15:3). 



512 COMMENTARY ON" ST. LUKE. 

as to the meaning which must be given to all the others, has not the least logical 
value. 

Or, finally, could God have permitted the Spirit of the glorified Jesus, manifesting 
itself to the disciples, to produce effects in them similar to those which a perception 
by the senses would have produced ? So Weisse and Lotze think. Keim has also 
declared for this hypothesis in his " Life of Jesus. " * But, 1. What then of the nar- 
ratives in which we see the Risen One seeking to demonstrate to the apostles that He 
is not a pure spirit (Luke 24:37-40)? They are pure inventions, audacious false- 
hoods. 2. As to this glorified Jesus, who appeared spiritually to the apostles, did He 
or did He not mean to produce on them the impression that He was present bodily? 
If He did, this heavenly Being was an impostor. If not, He must have been very 
unskilful in His manifestations. In both cases, He is the author of the misunder- 
standing which gave rise to the false testimony given involuntarily by the apostles, 
3. The empty tomb remains unexplained on this hypothesis, as well as on the preced- 
iug. Keim has added nothing to what his predecessors have advanced to solve this 
difficulty. In reality, there is but one sufficient account to be given of the empty 
tomb : the tomb was found empty, because He who had been laid there Himself rose 
from it. To this opinion of Keim we may apply what holds of his explanation of 
miracles, and of his way of looking at the life of Jesus in general : it is too much or 
too little supernatural. It is not worth while combating the biblical accounts, when 
such enormous concessions are made to them ; to deny, for example, the miraculous 
birth, when we admit the absolute holiness of Christ, or the bodily resurrection, 
w T hen we grant the reality of the appearances of the glorified Jesus. Keim for some 
time asceuded the scale ; now he descends again. He could not stop there. 

II. The Accounts of the Resurrection. — These accounts are in reality only reports 
regarding the appearauces of the Risen One. The most ancient and the most official, 
if one may so speak, is that of Paul, 1 Cor. 15. It is the summary of the oral teach- 
ing received iu the Church (ver. 2), of the tradition proceeding from all the apostles 
together (vers. 11-15). Paul enumerates the six appearances, as follows : 1. To 
Cephas ; 2. To the Twelve ; 3. To the 500 ; 4. To James : 5. To the Twelve ; 6. To 
himself. We easily make out in Luke, Nos. 1, 2, 5 in his Gospel (24 : 34, ver. 36 ei 
seq.. ver. 50 et seq.) ; No. 6 in the Acts. The appearance to James became food for 
Judeo Christian legends. It is elaborated in the apoer3 r phal books. There remains 
No. 3, the appearance to the 500. A strange and instructive fact ! No appearance 
of Jesus is better authenticated, more unassailable ; none was more public, and none 
produced in the Church so decisive an effect . . . and it is not mentioned, at least 
as such in any of our four Gospel accounts ! How should this fact put us on our guard 
against the argumentum e silentio, of which the criticism of the present day makes so 
unbridled a use ! How it ought to show the complete ignorance in which we are still 
left, and probably shall ever he, of the circumstances which presided over the forma- 
tion of that oral tradition which has exercised so decisive an influence over our gospel 
historiography ! Luke could not be ignorant of this fact if he had read but once the 
1st Epistle to the Corinthians, conversed once on the subject with St. Paul . . . 
and he has uot mentioned, nor even dropped a hint of it ! To bring down the com- 
position of Luke by half a century to explain this omission, serves no end. For the 
further the time is brought down, the more impossible is it that the author of the 
Gospel should not have known the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians. 

Matthew's account mentions only the two following appearances : 1. To the 
women at Jerusalem ; 2. To the Eleven, on a mountain of Galilee, where Jesus hud 
appointed them to meet Him (ov erd^aTo 7ropevea6at). We at once recognize in No. 
1 the appearance to Mary Magdalene, John 20 : 1-17. The second is that gather- 
ing which Jesus had convoked, according to Matthew and Mark, before His death ; 
then, immediately after the resurrection, either by the angel or by His own mouth 
(Matthew). But it is now only that Matthew tells us of the rendezvous appointed for 
the disciples on the mountain. This confirms the opinion which we had already 
reached, viz., that we have here to do with a call which was not addressed to the 
Eleven only, but to all believers, even to the women. Jesus wished again to see all 
His brethren, and to constitute His flock anew, which had been scattered by the death 

* Otherwise in his " Geschichtl. Christus." 



COMMENTARY ON" ST. LUKE. 513 

of the Shepherd. The choice of such a locality as that which Jesus had designated, 
confirms the conclusion that we have here to do with a numerous reunion. We can- 
not therefore doubt that it is the assembly of 500 spoken of by Paul, 1 Cor. 15. If 
Matthew does not expressly mention more than the Eleven, it is because to them 
was addressed the commission given by Jesus, " to go and baptize all nations." The 
expression : " but some doubted," is also more easily explained, if the Eleven were 
not alone.* Matthew did not intend to relate the first appearances by which the 
apostles, whether individually or together, were led to believe (this was the object of 
the appearances which took place at Jerusalem, and which are mentioned by Luke 
and John), but that which, in keeping with the spirit of his Gospel, he wished to set 
in relief as the climax of his history — that, namely, to which he had made allusion 
from the beginning, and which may be called the Messiah's taking possession of the 
whole world. 

Mark's account is original as far as ver. 8. At ver. 9 we find : 1. An entirely new 
beginning ; 2. From ver. 8 a clearly marked dependence on Luke. After that, there 
occur from ver. 15, and especially in ver. 17, some very original sayings, which indi- 
cate an independent source. The composition of the work thus seems to have been 
interrupted at ver. 8, and the book to have remained unfinished. A sure proof of 
this is, that the appearance of Jesus announced to the women by the angel, ver. 7, is 
totally wanting, if, with the Sinai't., the Vatic, and other authorities, the Gospel is 
closed at ver. 8. From ver. 9, a conclusion has thus been added b\ means of our Gos- 
pel of Luke, which had appeared in the interval, and of some original materials pre- 
viously collected with this view by the author (vers. 15, 16, and especially 17, 18). 

III. The Accounts taken as a WJtole. — If, gathering those scattered accounts, we 
unite them in one, w T e find ten appearances. In the first three, Jesus comforts and 
raises, for He has to do with downcast hearts : He comforts Mary Magdalene, who 
seeks His lost body ; He raises Peter after his fall ; He reanimates the hope of the 
two going to Emmaus. Thereafter, in. the following three, He establishes the faith, 
of His future witnesses in the decisive fact of His resurrection ; He fulfils this mis- 
sion toward the apostles in general, and toward Thomas ; and # He reconstitutes the- 
apostolate by returning to it its head. In the seventh and eighth appearances, He- 
impresses on the apostolate that powerful missionary impulse which lasts still, and 
He adds James to the disciples, specially with a view to the mission for Israel. In 
the last two, finally, He completes the preceding commands by some special instruc- 
tions (not to leave Jerusalem, to wait for the Spirit, etc.), and bids them His last fare- 
well ; then, shortly afterward, He calls Paul specially with a view to the Gentiles. 
This unity, so profoundly psychological, so holily organic, is not the work of any of 
the evangelists, for its elements are scattered over the four accounts. The wisdom 
and love of Christ are its only authors.f 

IV. The Importance of the Resurrection. — This event is not merely intended to 
mark out Jesus as the Saviour ; it is salvation it elf, condemnation removed, death 
vanquished. We were perishing, condemned : Jesus dies. His death saves us ; He 
is the first who enjoys salvation. He rises again ; then in Him we are made to live 
again. Such an event is everything, includes everything, or it has no existence. 

6. Tlie Ascension : vers. 50-53. — The resurrection restored humanity in that one 
of its members who, by His holy life and expiatory death, conquered our two enemies 

* If this expression is to be applied to the Eleven themselves, it must be explained 
by the summary character of this account, in which the first doubts expressed in the 
preceding appearances are applied to this, the only one related. 

f See the remarkable development of this thought by M. Gess, in his new work, 
" Christi Zeugniss von seiner Person und seinem Werk," 1870, p. 193 et seq. " This 
progression in the appearances of Jesus is so wisely graduated, that we are not at lib- 
ty to refer it to a purely subjective origin. Supposing they were all related by one 
and the same evangelist, it might doubtless be attempted to make him the author of" 
so well ordered a plan. But as this arrangement results only from combining the- 
first, the third, and the fourth Gospels . . . this explanation also is excluded." 
Pwre 204. 



514 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

— the law which condemned us because of sin, and death, which overtook us because 
of the condemnation of the law (1 Cor. 15 : 56). As this humanity is restored in the 
person of Christ by the fact of His resurrection, the ascension raises it to its full 
height ; it realizes its destination, which from the beginning was to serve as a free 
instrument for the operations of the infinite God. 

Vers. 50-53.* The Ascension. — Luke alone, in his Gospel and in the Acts, has 
given us a detailed view of the scene which is indicated by Paul, 1 Cor. 15 : 7, and 
assumed throughout the whole N. T. Interpreters like Meyer think themselves 
obliged to limit the ascension of Jesus to a purely spintual elevation, and to admit 
no external visible fact in which this elevation was manifested. Luke's account was 
the production of a later tradition. We shall examine this hypothesis at the cluse. 

The meaning of the k^yaye tie, Then He led tliem, is simply this : "All these 
instructions finished, He led them . . ." This expression says absolutely nothing 
as to the time when the event took place. The term owaXi&fievoc, having assembled, 
Acts 1 : 4, proves that Jesus had specially convoked the apostles in order to take leave 
of them. "Eg>s eU (T. E,.), and still more decidedly ewS rrpas (Alex.), signifies, not as 
far as, but to about, in the direction and even to the neighborhood of . . . There 
is thus no contradiction to Acts 1 : 12.f Like the high priest when, coming forth 
from the temple, he blessed the people, Jesus comes forth from the invisible world 
once more, before altogether shutting Himself up within it, and gives His /own a last 
benediction. Then, in the act of performing this deed of love, He is withdrawn to a 
distance from them toward the top of the mountain, and His visible presence vanishes 
from their eyes. The words koX avedspero els tov ovpavbv are omitted in/the Sina/U., 
the Cantab., and some copies of the Jtala. Could this phrase be the gloss of a copy- 
ist ? But a gloss would probably have been borrowed from the narrative of the Acts, 
and that book presents no analogous expression. Might not this omission rather be, 
like so many others, the result of negligence, perhaps of confounding the two /cat ? 
We can hardly believe that Luke would have said so curtly, He was parted from them, 
without adding how. The imperfect avefyepsTo, He was carried up, forms a picture. 
It reminds us of the Oeupeiv, behold, John 6 : 62. The Cantab, and some mss. of the 
Itala omit (ver. 52) the word irpoaKwrjaavTec, having worshipped Him, perhaps in conse- 
quence of confounding avral and avrov. The verb rrpocicvveiv, to prostrate one' 8 self , in 
this context, can mean only the adoration which is paid to a divine b^ing (Ps. 2': 12). 
The joy of the disciples caused by this elevation of their Master, which is the pledge 
of the victory of His cause, fulfilled the word of Jesus : " If ye loved me, ye would 
rejoice because I go to my Father" (John 14 : 28). The point to be determined is, 
whether the more detailed account in Acts (the cloud, the two glorified men who 
appear) is an amplification of the scene due to the pen of Luke, or whether the 
account in the Gospel was only a sketch which he proposed to complete at the begin- 
ning of his second treatise, of which this scene was to form the starting- point. If 
our explanation of vers. 44-49 is well founded, we cannot but incline to the second 

* Ver. 50. A. B. C. L. some Mnn. Syr 8ch . omit efa after avrovs. J*. B. C. P. L. 
2Mnu., fwS TrpoS instead of fwf etS. Ver, 51. J*. D. It ali( i. omit the words icai avefepero 
etS tov ovpavov. Ver. 52. D. It ali 9. omit the words irpocKvvqo'avTeS avrov. Ver. 53. 
D. lt ali( i. omit the words Kat tv\oyovvrti, &. B. C. L. omit atvovvreS /ctu. &. C. D. L. 
II. some Mnn. It ali< *. omit aurjv. 

f See the interesting passage of M. Felix Bo vet on the spot from which the ascen- 
sion took place, " Voyage en Terre-Sainte," p. 225, etseq. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 515 

view. And the more we recoguize up to this point in Luke an author who writes 
conscientiously and from convictiou, the more shall we feel obliged to reject the first 
alternative. The numerous omissions, vers. 52, 53, in the Cantab, and some mss. 
of the ltala cannot well be explained, except by the haste which the copyists seem 
to have made as they approached the end of their work. Or should the preference 
be given, as Tischendurf gives it, to this abridged text, contrary to all the other 
authorities together? Dab, which read alvovvrei without nai ev/ioyovvres ; &. B. C. 
L., which read ev?.oyovvTe$ without clivovvteS nai, mutually condemn one another, and 
so confirm the received reading, praising and blessing God. Perhaps the omission in 
both cases arises from confounding the two — v-ec. Alvelv, to praise, refers to the 
person of God ; evhuyeiv, to bless, to His benefits. The disciples do here what was 
done at tne beginning by the shepherds (2 . 20). But what a way traversed, what a 
series of glorious benefits between those two acts of homage ! The last words, these 
iu particular: "They were continually in the temple," form the transition to the 
book of Acts. 

On the Ascension. 

At first the apostles regarded the ascension as only the last of those numerous dis- 
appearances which they had witnessed during the forty daj's (a^avros eytveTo, ver. 
81). Jesus regarded it as the elevation of His person, in the character of Son of man, 
to that fiopbr) Qeov (Phil. 2 : 6), that divine state which He had renounced when He 
came under the conditions of human existence. Having reached the term of His 
earthly career, He had asked back Sis glory (John 17 : 5) ; the ascension was the 
answer to Lis prayer. 

Modern criticism objects to the reality of the ascension as au external fact, on the 
ground of tli3 Copernican system, which excludes the belief that heaven is a particu- 
lar place sitiuted above our heads and beyond the stars. Those whu raise this objec- 
tion labor under a very gross misunderstanding. According to the biblical view, 
the ascension is not the exchange of one place for another , it is a change of state, and 
this change is precisely the emancipation from all confinement within the limits of 
space, exaltation to omnipresence. The cloud was, as it were, the veil which cov- 
ered this transformation. The right hand of a God everywhere present cannot 
designate a ptrticular place. Sitting at the right hand of God must also include 
omniscience, Fhieh is closely bound up with omnipresence, as well as omnipotence, 
of which the right hand of God is the natural symbol. The Apocalypse expresses in 
its figurative language the true meaning of the ascension, when it represents the 
glorified Son o:" man as the Lamb with seven horns (omnipotence) and seven eyes 
(omniscience). This divine mode of being does not exclude bodily existence iu the 
case cf Jesus. Comp., in Paul, the cujuariKui, bodily, Col. 2 : 9, and the expression 
spiritual body applied to the second Adam, 1 Cor. 15 : 44. We cannot, from experi- 
ence, form an idea of this glorified bodily existence. But it may be conceived as a 
pover of appearing sensibly and of external activity, operating at the pleasure of the 
wi.l alone, and at every point of space. 

Another objection is taken from the omission of this scene in the other biblical 
documents. But, 1. Paul expressly mentions an appearance to all the apostles, 1 
Cor. 15 : 7. Placed at the close of the whole series of previous appearances (among 
.hem that to the 500), and immediately before that which decided his own conversion, 
this appearance can only be the one at the ascension as related by Luke. This fact is 
decisive ; for, according to vers. 3 and 11, It is the irapadooiS, the general tradition of 
the churches, proceeding from the apostles, which Paul sums up in this passage. 2. 
However Mark's mutilated conclusion ma} r be explained, the words : " So then, after 
the Lord had thus spoken untoJhem, He was received up into heaven, and sat on the 
right hand of God," suppase sWne sensible fact or other, which served as a basis for 
such expressions. The same holds of the innumerable declarations of the epistles 
(Paul, Peter, Hebrews, James), which speak of the heavenly glory of Jesus and of 



516 COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 

His sitting at the right hand of God. Dcctriues, with the apostles, are never more 
than the commentary on facts. Such expressions must have a historical substratum. 
3. No doubt, John does not relate the ascension. But can it be said that he does not 
mention it, when this saying occurs in his Gospel (6 : 62) : " What and if ye shall 
see the Sou of man ascend up where He was before?" The term deupelv, strictly to 
contemplate, and the pres. partic. avafiaivovra, ascending, forbid us to think of an event 
of a purely spiritual nature (comp. Baumlein, ad. h. I.). Why, then, does he not 
relate the historical scene of the ascension ? Because, as his starting-point was taken 
after the baptism, which on this account he does not relate, his conclusion is placed 
before the ascension, which for this reason he leaves unrelated. The idea of his book 
was the development of faith in the minds of the apostles from its birth to its con- 
summation. Now their faith was born with the visit of John and Andrew, chap. 1, 
after the baptism ; and it had received the seal of perfection in the profession of 
Thomas, chap. 20, before the ascension. That the evangelist did not think of relat- 
ing all the appearances which he knew, is proved positively by that on the shores of 
the Lake of Gennesaret, which is related after the close of the book (20 : 30^ 31), and 
in an appendix (chap. 21) composed either by the author himself (at least as far as 
ver« 23), or based on a tradition emanating from him. He was therefore aware of this 
appearance, and he had not mentioned it in his Gospel, like Luke, who could not be 
ignorant of the appearance to the 500, and who has not mentioned it either in his 
Gospel or in Acts. What reserve should such facts impose on criticism, however 
little gifted with caution ! 4. And the following must be very peeuliaily borne in 
mind in judging of Matthew's narrative. It is no doubt strange to find this evangel- 
ist relating (besides the appearance to the women, which is intended merely to pre- 
pare for that following bj r the message which is given them) only a single appearance 
that which took place on the mountain of Galilee where Jesus had appointed His dis- 
ciples, as well as the women and all the faithful, to meet Him, and where He gives 
the Eleven their commission. This appearance cannot be any of those which Luke 
and John place in Judea. It conies nearer by its locality to that whicp, according 
to John 21, took place in Galilee ; but it cannot be identified with it, foi the scene of 
the latter was the sea-shore. As we have seen, it can only be the appearance to the 
500 mentioned by Paul. The meeting on a mountain is in perfect keeping v/ith so 
^numerous an assembly though Matthew mentions none but the Eleven, because the 
.grand aim is that mission of world-wide evangelization which Jesus g/ves them that 
day. Matthew's intention was not, as we have already seen, to mention all the dif- 
ferent appearances, either in Jude'a or Galilee, by which Jesus had rpawakened the 
■personal faith of the apostles, and concluded His earthly connection with them. His 
narrative had exclusively in view that solemn appearance in which (Tesus declared 
Himself the Lord of the universe, the sovereign of the nations, and. had given the 
apostles their mission to conquer for Him the ends of the earth. S* true is it that 
;his narrative must terminate in this supreme fact, that Jesus announced it before His 
death (Matt. 26 : 32), and that, immediately after the resurrection, the ingel and Jesus 
Himself spoke of it to the women (28 : 7-10). Indeed, this scene was, in the view of 
the author of the first Gospel, the real goal of the theocratic revelation, the climax of 
'the ancient covenant. If the day of the ascension was the most important in reipect 
of the personal development of Jesus (Luke), the day of His appearance on the moun- 
tain showed the accomplishment of the Messianic programme sketched 1:1: " Jeuis, 
the Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." It w r as the decisive day for \he 
establishment of the kingdom of God, which is Matthew's great thought. Criticisn 
is on a false tack when it assumes that every evangelist has said all that he coud 
have said. With oral tradition spread and received in the Church, the gospel histori 
ography did not require to observe such an anxious gait as is supposed. It was not 
greatly concerned to relate an appearance more or les3. The essential thing was to 
affirm the resurrection itself. The contrast between the detailed official enumeration 
of Paul, 1 Gar. 15, and each of our four Gospels, proves this to a demonstration. 
Especially does it seem to us thoroughly illogical to doubt the fact of the ascension, 
as Meyer does, because of Matthew's silence, and not to extend this doubt to all the 
appearances in Judea, about which he is equally silent. 

The following passage from the letter of Barnabas has sometimes been used in 
evidence : " We celebrate with joy that eighth day on which Jesus rose from the 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 517 

dead, and, after having manifested Himself, ascended to heaven." The author, it is 
said, like Luke, places the ascension and the resurrection on the same day. But it 
may he that in this expression he puts them, not on the same day taken absolutely, 
hut on the same day of the wtek, the eighth, Sunday (which no doubt would involve 
an error as to the ascension). Or, indeed, this saying may signify, according to 
John 20 : 17, which in that case it would reproduce, that the ascending of Jesus to 
heaven begun with the resurrection, and on that very day. In reality, from that time 
He was no more with His own, as He Himself says (Luke 24 : 44). He belonged to a 
higher sphere of existence. He only manifested Himself here below. He no longer 
lived here. He was ascending, to use His own expression. According to this view, 
His resurrection and the beginning of His elevation (nal-nai) therefore took place the 
same day. The expression : after having manifested Himself, would refer to the 
appearances which took place on the resurrection day, and after which He entered 
into the celestial sphere. 

]n any case, the resurrection once admitted as a real fact, the question is, how 
Jesus left the earth. By stealth, without saying a word ? One fine day, without any 
warning whatever, He ceased to reappear? Is this mode of acting compatible with 
His tender love for his own ? Or, indeed, according to M. de Bunsen, His body, 
exhausted by the last effort which His resurrection had cost Him (Jesus, according 
to this writer, was the author of this event by the energy of His will), succumbed in 
a missionary journey to Phenicia, where He went to seek believe! s among the Gen- 
tiles (John 10 : 17, 18 ; comp. with ver. 16) ; and having died there unknown, Jesus 
was likewise buried ! But in this case, His body raised from the dead must have 
differed in no respect from the body which He had had during His life. And how 
.are we 1o explain all the accounts, from which it appears that, between His resurrec- 
tion and ascension, His bodjr was already under peculiar conditions, and in course 
of glorification ? The reality of such a fact as that related by Luke in his account of 
the ascension is therefore indubitable, both from the special standpoint of faith in 
the resurrection, and from the standpoint of faith in general. The ascension is a 
postulate of faith. 

The ascension perfects in the person of the Son of man God's desigu in regard to 
humanity. To make of sanctified believers a family of children of God, perfectty 
like that only Son who is the prototype of the whole race — such is God's plan, His 
eternal TrpdOecic (Rom. 8 : 28, 29), with a view to which He created the universe. As 
the plant is the unconscious agent of the life of nature, man was intended to become 
the fiee and intelligent organ of the holy life of the personal God. Xow, to realize 
this plan, God thought good (evSoKijae) to accomplish it first in ONE ; Eph. 2:0: 
" He hath raised us up tn Christ, and made us sit in Him in the heavenly places ;" 
1 : 10 : " According to the purpose which He had to gather together all things under 
one head, Christ ;" Heb. 2 : 10 : " Wishing to bring many sons to glory, He per- 
fected the Captain of salvation." Such was, according to the divine plan, the 
first act of salvation. The second was to unite to this One individual believers, and 
thus to make them partakers of the divine state to which the Son of man had been 
raised (Horn. 8 : 29). This assimilation of the faithful to His Son God accomplished 
by means of two things, which are the necessary complement of the facts of the Gos- 
pel history : Pentecost, whereby the Lord's moral being becomes that of the believer ; 
and the Parousia, whereby the external condition of the sanctified believer is raised 
to the same elevation as that of our glorified Lord. First holiness, then glory, for the 
body as for the head : the baptism of Jesus, which becomes ours by Pentecost ; the 
ascension of Jesus, which becomes ours by the Parousia. 

Thus it is that each Gospel, and not only that which we have just been explain- 
ing, has the Acts for its second volume, and for its Ihitd the Apocalypse. 



CONCLUSION. 



From our exegetical studies we pass to the work of criticism, which will gather up 
the fruits. This will bear on four points : 

I. The characteristic features of our Gospel. 
II. Its composition (aim, time, place, author). 

III. Its sources, and its relation to the other two synoptics. 

IV. The beginning of the Christian Church. 

The first chapter will establish the facts ; in the following two we shall ascend 
from these to their causes ; the aim of the fourth is to replace the question of gospel 
literature in its historical position. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE THIRD GOSPEL. 

We have to characterize this writing— 1st. As a historical production ; 2d. As a 
religious work ; 3d. As a literary composition. 

I. — Historical Point of View. 

The distinctive features of Luke's narrative, viewed historiographically, appear to 
us to be : Fulness, accuracy, aud continuity. 

A. In respect of quantity, this Gospel far surpasses the other Byn. The entire 
matter contained in the three may be included in 172 sections.* Of this number, 
Luke has 127 sections, that is to say, three fourths of the whole, while Matthew pre- 
sents only 114, or two thirds, and Mark 84, or the half. 

This superiority in fulness which distinguishes Luke will appear still more, if we 
observe that, after cutting off the fifty six sections which are common to the three 
accounts, and form as it were the indivisible inheritance of the Syn., then the eight- 
een which are common to Luke and Matthew alone, finally the five which he has in 
common with Mark, there remain as his own peculiar portion, forty-eight — that is to 
say, mure than a fourth of the whole materials, while Matthew has for his own only 
twenty-two, and Mark only five. 

Once more, it is to be remarked that those materials which exclusively belong to 

* There is necessarily much arbitrariness in the way of marking off those sec- 
tions, as well as in the way in which the parallelism between the three narratives is 
established, especially as concerns the discourses which are more or less common to 
Matthew and Luke. M. Keuss (" Gesch. der heil. Schriften N. T."), making the sec- 
tions larger, obtains only 124. This difference may affect considerably the figures, 
which indicate the comparative fulness of the three Gospels. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 519 

Luke are as important as they are abundant. We have, for example, the narratives 
of the infancy ; those of the raising of the son of the widow of Nam, of the woman 
who was a siuuer at the feet of Jesus, of the entertainment at the house of Martha 
and Mary, of the tears of Jesus over Jerusalem ; the parables of the good Samaritan, 
the lost sheep and the lost drachma, the prodigal son, the faithless steward, the 
wicked rich man, the unjust judge, the Pharisee and the publican ; the prayer of 
Jesus for His executioners, His conversation with the thief on the cross, the appear- 
ance to ihe two disciples going to Emmuus, the ascension. How diminished would 
the portrait be which remains to us of Jesus, and what an impoverishment of the 
knowledge which we have of His teachings, if all these pieces, which are preserved 
by Luke alone, were wanting to us ! 

B. But, where history is concerned, abundance is of less importance than accu- 
racy. Is the wealth of Luke of good quality, and does his treasure not contain base 
coin ? We believe that all sound exegesis of Luke's narrative will result in paying 
homage to his fidelity. Are the parts in question those which are peculiar to him— the 
accounts of the infancy (chaps. 1 and 2), the account of the journey (9 : 51 — 19 : 27) 
the view of the ascension (24 : 50-53)? We have found the first confirmed, so far as 
the central fact— the miraculous birth— is concerned, by the absolute holiness of 
Christ, which is the unwavering testimony of His consciousness, and which involves 
a different origin in His case from ours ; and as to the details, by the purely Jewish 
character of the events and discourses — a character which would be inexplicable after 
the rupture between the Church and the synagogue. The supernatural in these ac- 
counts has, besides, nothing in common with the legendary marvels of the apocryphal 
books, nor even with the already altered traditions which appear in such authors as 
Papias and Justin, the nearest successors of the apostles, on different points of the 
Gospel history. In studying carefully the account of the journey, we have found 
that all the improbabilities which are alleged against it vanish. It is not a straight 
journey to Jerusalem ; it is a slow and solemn itineration, all the incidents and adven- 
tures of which Jesus turns to account, in order to educate His disciples and evangel- 
ize the multitudes. He thus finds the opportunity of visiting a country which till then 
had not enjoyed His ministry, the southern parts of Galilee, adjacent to Samaria, as 
well as Perea. Thereb3 r an important blank in His work in Israel is filled up. Fi- 
nally, the sketch of that prolonged journey to Jerusalem, without presenting exactly 
the same type as John's narrative, which divides this epoch into four distinct jour- 
neys (to the feast of Tabernacles, chap. 8 ; to the feast of Dedication, chap. 10 ; to 
Bethany, chap. 11 ; to the last Passover, chap. 12), yet resembles it so closclj r , that it 
is impossible not to take this circumstance as materially confirming Luke's account. 
It is a first, though imperfect,' rectification of the abrupt contrast between the Gali- 
lean ministry and the last sojourn at Jerusalem which characterizes the synoptical 
view ; it is the beginning of a return to the full historical truth restored by John.* 

We have found the account of the ascension not only confirmed by the apostolic 

* Sabatier (" Essai sur les sources de la vie de Jesus," pp 31 and 32 : " Luke, 
without seeking or intending it, but merely as the result of his new investigations, 
has destroyed the factitious framework of the synoptical tradition, and has given us 
a glimpse of a new one, larger, without being less simple. Luke is far from having 
cleared away every difficulty. ... He had too much light to be satisfied with 
following in the track of his predecessors ; he had not enough to reach the full reality 
of the Gospel history. He thus serves admirably to form the transition between the 
first two Gospels and the fourth. " 



520 comme:ntary otx st. luke. 

view of the glorification of Jesus which fills the epistles, by the last verses of Mark, 
and by the saying of Jesus, John 6 : 62, but also by the express testimony of Paul, 1 
Cor. 15 : 7, to an appearance granted to all the apostles, which must have taken place 
between that granted to the 500 brethren and that on the way to Damascus. 

So far, then, from regarding those parts as arbitrary additions which Luke took 
the liberty of making to the Gospel history, we are bound to recognize them as real 
historical data, which serve to complete the beginning, middle, and end of our Lord's 
life. 

We think we have also established the almost uniform accuracy shown by Luke 
in distributing, under a multitude of different occasions, discourses which are 
grouped by Matthew in one whole ; we have recognized the same character of fidelity 
in the historical introductions which he almost always prefixes to those discourses. 
After having established, as we have done, the connection between the saying about 
the lilies of the field and the birds of the air and the parable of the foolish rich man 
(chap. 12), the similar relation between the figures used in the lesson about prayer 
and the parable of the importunate friend (chap. 11) — who will prefer, historically 
speaking, the place assigned by Matthew to those two lessons in the Sermon on the 
Mount, where the images used lose the exquisite fitness which in Luke they derive 
from their connection with the narratives preceding them ¥• What judicious critic, 
after feeling the breach of continuity which is produced on the Sermon on the Mount 
by the insertion of the Lord's Prayer (Matt. 6), will not prefer the characteristic scene 
which Luke has described of the circumstances in which this form of prayer was 
taught to the apostles (Luke 11 : 1, et seq.)? How can we doubt that the menacing 
farewell to the cities of Galilee was uttered at the time at which Luke has it (chap. 
10), immediately after his departure, 9 : 51, rather than in the middle of the Galilean 
ministry, where it is put by Matthew V The same is true of the cases in "which the 
sayings of Jesus can only be fully explained by the surroundings in which Luke 
places them; e.g., the answers of Jesus to the three aspirants after the kingdom of 
God (chap. 9) would be incomprehensible and hardly justifiable on the eve of a mere 
excursion to the other side of the sea (Matt. 8), while they find their full explanation 
at the time of a final departure (Luke). 

The introductions with which Luke prefaces those occasional teachings are nnt in 
favor with modern critics.* Yet Holtzmann acknowledges the historical truth of 
some — of those, for example, which introduce the Lord's Prayer and the lesson upon 
avarice (chap. 12). We have ourselves established the accuracy of a ver} r large num- 
ber, and shown that they contain the key to the discourses which follow, and that 
commentators 'nave often erred from having neglected the indications which they 
contain (see on 13 : 23, 14 : 25, 15 : 1, 2, 16 : 1, 14, 17 : 20, 18 : 1, 19 : 11). What con- 
firms the really historical character of those notices is, that there is a certain number 
of doctrinal teachings which want them, and which Luke is satisfied to set down 
without connection and without introduction after one another : so with the four 

* Weizsacker is the author who abuses them most : " No value can be allowed to 
the historical introductions of Luke" (" Untersuch," p. 139). It is true that he is 
necessarily led to this estimate by his opinion regarding the general conformity of 
the great discourses of Matthew to the common apostolic sources of Matthew and 
Luke, the Logia. If Matthew is, of the two evangelists, the one who faithfully 
reproduces this original, Luke must have arbitrarily dislocated the great bodies of 
discourse found in Matthew ; and in this case, the historical introductions must be 
his own invention. 



COMMENTARY ON" ST. LUKE. 521 

precepts, 17 : 1-10. Certainly, if he had allowed himself to invent situations, it 
would not have been more difficult to imagine them for those sayings than for so 
many others. 

If finally, we compare the parallel accounts of Luke and of the other two synop- 
tics, we find, both in the description of facts and in the tenor of the sayings of 
Jesus, a very remarkable superiority on the part of Luke in respect of accuracy. 
We refer to the prayer of Jesus at the time of His baptism, and before His transfigu- 
ration — the human factor, as it is, which leads to the divine interposition, aud lakes 
from it that abrupt character which it appears to have in the other accounts. In the 
temptation, the transposition of the last two acts of the struggle, in the transfigura- 
tion, the mention of the subject of the conversation of Jesus with Moses and Elias, 
throw great light on those scenes taken as a whole, which in the other synoptics are 
much less clear (see the passages). 

We know that Luke is charged with grave historical errors. According to M. 
Renan (" Vie de Jesus," p. 89 et seq.), certain declarations are " pushed to extremity 
and rendered false ;" for example, 14 : 26, where Luke says : " If any man hate not 
his father and mother," where Matthew is content with saying, "He that loveth 
father or mother wore than me." We refer to our exegesis of the passage. "He 
exaggerates the marvellous ;" for example, the appearance of the angel in Gethsem- 
ane. As if Matthew and Mark did not relate a perfectly similar fact, which Lnke 
omits, at the close of the account of the temptation ! " He commits chronological 
errors ;" tor example, in regard to Quirinius and Lysanias. Luke appears to us 
right, so far as Lysanias is concerned ; and as to Quirinius, considering the point at 
which researches now stand, an impartial historian will hardly take the liberty of 
condemning him unconditionally. According to Keim, Luke is evidently wrong in 
placing the visit to Nazareth at the opening of the Galilean ministry ; but has he not 
given us previously the description of the general activity of Jesus in Galilee (4 : 14 
and 15) V ' And is not the saying of ver. 23, which supposes a stay at Capernaum pre- 
vious to this visit, to be thus explained ? And, further, do not Matt. 4 : 13 and John 
2 : 12 contain indisputable proofs of a return on the part of Jesus to Nazareth in the 
very earliest times of His Galilean ministry ? According to the same author, Luke 
makes Nain in Galilee a city of Judea ; but this interpretation proceeds, as we have 
seen, from an entire misunderstanding of the context (see on 7 : 17). It is alleged, on 
the ground of 17 : 11, that he did not' know the relative positions of Samaria and 
Galilee. We are convinced that Luke is as far as possible from being guilty of so 
gross a mistake. According to M. Sabatier (p. 29), there is a contradiction between 
the departure of Jesus by way of. Samaria (9 : 52) and His arriving in Judea by Jericho 
(18 : 35) ; but even if the plan of Jesus had been to pass through Samaria, the refusal 
of the Samaritans to receive Him would have prevented Him from carrying it out. 
And had He, in spite of this, passed through Samaria, He might still have arrived by 
way of Jericho ; for from the earliest limes there has been a route from north to 
south on the right bank of the Jordan. Finally, he is charged with certain faults 
which he shares with the other two synoptics. But either those mistakes have no 
real existence, as that which refers to the day of Jesus' death, or Luke does not share 
them — e.g., that which leads Matthew and Mark to place John's imprisonment before 
the first return of Jesus to Galilee, or the charge of inaccuracy attaches to him in a 
less degree than to his colleagues, as in the case of the omission of the journeys of 
Jesus to Jerusalem. 



522 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

There is a last observation to be made on the historical character of Luke's nar- 
rative. It occupies an intermediate position between the other three Gospels. It 
has a point in common with Matthew — the doctrinal teachings of Jesus ; it has also a 
point of contact with Mark — the sequence of the accounts, which is the same over a 
large portion of the narrative ; it has likewise several features in common with John : 
the chief is, that considerable interval which in both of them divides the end of the 
Galilean ministry from the last sojourn at Jerusalem. Thereto must be added some 
special details, such as the visit to Martha and Mary, as well as the characteristics of 
those two women, which harmonize so well with the sketch of the family of Bethany 
drawn by John (chap. 11) ; next, the dispute of the disciples at the close of the Holy 
Supper, with the lessons of Jesus therewith connected — an account the connection of 
which with that of the feet-washing in John (chap. 13) is so striking. And thus, 
while remaiuing entirely independent of the other three, the Gospel of Luke is never- 
theless confirmed and supported simultaneously by them all. 

From all those facts established by exegesis, it follows that, if Luke's account has 
not, like that of John, the fulness and precision belonging to the narrative of an eye- 
witness, it nevertheless reaches the degree of fidelity which may be attained by a his- 
torian who draws his materials from those sources which are at once the purest and 
the nearest to the facts. 

G. An important confirmation of the accuracy of Luke's account arises from the 
continuity, the well-marked historical progression, which characterizes it. If he is 
behind John in this respect, he is far superior to Matthew and Mark. 

Though the author did not tell us in his prologue, we should easily discover that 
his purpose is to depict the gradual development of the work of Christianity. He 
takes his starting point at the -earliest origin of this work — the announcement of the 
foreruuner's birth ; it is the first dawning of the new day which is rising on hu- 
manity. Then come the birth and growth of the forerunner— the birth and growth of 
Jesus Himself. The physical and moral development of Jesus is doubly- sketched, 
before and after His first visit to Jerusalem at the age of twelve ; a scene related 
only by Luke, and which forms the link of connection between the infancy of Jesus 
and His public ministry. With the baptism begins the development of His work, the 
continuation of that of His person. From this point the narrative pursues two dis- 
tinct and parallel lines : on one side, the progress of the new work ; on the other, its 
violent rupture with the old work, Judaism. The progress of the work is marked by 
its external increase. At first, Capernaum is its centre ; thence Jesus goes forth in 
all directions (4 : 43, 44) : Nain to the west, Gergesa to the east, Bethsai'da- Julias to 
the north ; then Capernaum ceases to be the centre of His excursions (8 : 1-3), and 
quitting those more northern countries entirely, He proceeds to evangelize southern 
Galilee and Perea, upon which He had not yet entered (9 : 51), and repairs by this way 
to Jerusalem. Side by side with this external progress goes the moral development 
of the work itself. Surrounded at first by a certain number of believers (4 : 38-42), 
Jesus soon calls some of them to become His permanent disciples and fellow- 
laborers (5 : 1-11, 27, 28). A considerable time after, when the work has grown, He 
chooses twelve from the midst of this multitude of disciples, making them His more 
immediate followers, and calling them apostles. Such is the foundation of the new 
edifice. The time at length comes when they are no longer sufficient for the wants 
of the work. Then seventy new evangelists are added to them. The death of Jesus 
suspends for some time the progress of the work ; but after His resurrection the 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 523 

apostolate is reconstituted ; and soon the ascension, by placing the Master on the 
throne, gives Him the means of elevating His fellow-laborers to the full height of 
that mission which they have to carry out in His name. Is not the concatenation of 
the narrative faultless V And is not this exposition far superior as a historical work 
to the systematic juxtaposition of homogeneous masses in Matthew, or to the series 
of anecdotes characteristic of Mark V The same gradation meets us in another line, 
that of the facts which mark the rupture between the new work and Israel with its 
official representatives. First it is the inhabitants of Nazareth, who refuse to recognize 
as the Messiah their former fellow-townsman (chap. 4) ; afterward it is the scribes 
who have come from Jerusalem, who deny His right to pardon sins, accuse Him of 
breaking the Sabbath (chap. 5 and 6), and, on seeing His miracles and hearing His 
answers, become almost mad with rage (6 : 11) ; it is Jesus who announces His near 
rejection by the Sanhedrim (9 : 22), and the death which awaits Him at Jerusalem 
(ver. 31) ; it is the woe pronounced on the cities of Galilee (chap. 10) and on that 
whole generation which shall one day be condemned by the queen of the south and 
the Ninevites ; then we have the divine woe uttered at a feast face to face with the 
Pharisees and scribes, and the violent scene which fellows this conflict (chaps. 11 and 
12) ; the express announcement of the rejection of Israel and of the desolation of the* 
country, especially of Jerusalem (chap. 18) ; the judgment and crucifixion of Jesus 
breakiug the last link between Messiah and His people ; the resurrection and ascen- 
sion emancipating His person from all national connections, and completely spiritual- 
izing His kingdom. Thus, in the end, the work begun at Bethlehem is traced to its 
climax, both in its internal development and its external emancipation. 

It is with the view of exhibiting this steady progress of the divine work in the two 
respects indicated, that the author marks off his narrative from the beginning by a 
series of general remarks, which serve as resting-places by the way, and which de- 
scribe at each stage the present position of the work. These brief representations, 
which serve both as summaries and points of outlook, are always distinguished by the 
use of the descriptive tense (the imperfect) ; the resuming of the history is indicated 
by the reappearance of the narrative tense (the aor.). The following are the chief 
passages of this kiud : 1 : 80, 2 : 40, 52, 8 : 18, 4 : 15, 37, 44, 5 : 15, 16, 8:1.9: 51, 
13 : 22, 17 : 11, 19 : 28, 47, 48, 21 : 87, 38, 24 : 53 (a last word, which closes the Gospel, 
and prepares for the narrative of the Acts). If those expressions are more and more 
distant in proportion as the narrative advances from the starting-point, it is because 
the further the journey proceeds, the less easy is it to measure its progress. 

What completes the proof that this characteristic of continuity is not accidental in 
Luke's narrative, is the fact that exactly the same feature meets us in the book of 
Acts. Here Luke describes the birth and growth of the Church, precisely as he de- 
scribed in his Gospel the birth and growth of the person and work of Jesus. The 
narrative takes its course from Jerusalem to Antioch and from Antioch to Rome, as 
in the Gospel it proceeded from Bethlehem to Capernaum and from Capernaum to 
Jerusalem. And it is not only in the line of the progress of the work that the Acts 
continue the Gospel ; it is also along that of the breach of the kingdom of God with 
the people of Israel. The rejection of the apostolic testimony and the persecution of 
the Twelve by the Sanhedrim ; the rejection of Stephen's preaching, his martyrdom, 
and the dispersion of the Church which results from it ; the martyrdom of James 
(chap. 12) ; the uniform repetition of the contumacious conduct of Israel in every 
city of the world where Paul is careful to preach first in the synagogue ; the machin- 



524 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

ations of the Jews against him on occasion of his arrest at Jerusalem, from which he 
escapes only by the impartial interposition of the Roman authorities ; and finally, in 
the closing scene (chap. 28), the decisive rejection of the Gospel by the Jewish com- 
munity at Rome, the heart of the empire : such are the steps of that ever-growing 
separation between the Church and the synagogue, of which this last scene forms as it 
were the finishing stroke. 

It is interesting to observe that the series of general expressions which marks off 
the line of progress in the Gospel is continued in the Acts ; it is the same course 
which is followed : 1 : 14, 2 : 42-47, 4 : 32-34, 5:12, 13, 42, 6:7, 8 : 4, 5, 9 : 31, 
12 : 24, 13 : 52, 19 : 20, 24 : 26, 27, 28 : 30, 31 (the last word, which is the conclusion 
of the narrative). The periodical recurrence of those expressions would suffice to 
prove that one and the same hand composed both the Gospel and the Acts ; for this 
form is found nowhere else in the N. T. 

By all those features we recognize the superiority of Luke's narrative as a histor- 
ical work. Matthew groups together doctrinal teachings in the form of great dis- 
courses ; he is a preacher. Mark narrates -events as they occur to his mind ; he is a 
chronicler. Luke reproduces the external and internal development of the events ; 
lie is the historian properly so called. Let it be remarked that the three character- 
istics which we have observed in his narrative correspond exactly to the three main 
terms of his programme (1:3); fulness, to the word ttuoiv (all tilings) ; accuracy, to 
the word aKpij3cJS (exactly) ; and continuity, to the word /ca0e£?/<; (in order). It is there- 
fore with a full consciousness of his method that Luke thus carried out his work. 
He traced a programme for himself, and followed it faithfully. 

II. — Religious Point of View. 

It is on this point that modern criticism has raised the most serious discussions. 
The Tubingen school, in particular, has endeavored to prove that our third Gospel, 
instead of being composed purely and simply in the service of historical truth, was 
written in the interest of a particular tendency — that of the Christianity of Paul, 
which was entirely different from primitive and apostolic Christianity. 

There is an unmistakable affinity of a remarkable kind between the contents of 
Luke and what the Apostle Paul in his epistles frequently calls Ms Gospel, that is to 
say, the doctrine of the universality and entire freeness of the salvation offered to man 
without any legal condition. At the beginning the angels celebrate the good-will of 
God to (all) men. ISimeon foreshadows the breach between the Messiah and the ma- 
jority of His people. Luke alone follows out the quotation of Isaiah relative to the 
ministry of John the Baptist, including the words : " And all flesh shall see the sal- 
vation of God. " He traces the genealogy back to Adam. The ministry of Jesus opens 
with His visit to Nazareth, which forms an express prelude 1o the unbelief of Israel. * 
The paralytic and the woman who was a sinner obtain pardon by faith alone. The 
sending of the seventy evangelists prefigures the evangelization of all nations. The 
part played by the Samaritan in the parable exhibits the superiority of that -people's 
moral disposition to that of the Israelites. The four parables of the lost sheep and 
the lost drachma, the prodigal son, the Pharisee and the publican, are the doctrine 
of Paul exhibited in action. That of the marriage supper (chap. 14) adds to the call- 
ing of sinners in Israel (ver. 21) that of the Gentiles (vers. 22 and 23). The teaching 
regarding the unprofitable servant (17 : 7-10) tears up the righteousness of works by 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 525 

the roots. The gratitude of the leprous Samaritan, compared with the ingratitude of 
the nine Jewish lepers, again exhibits the favorable disposition of this people, who 
are strangers to the theocracy. Salvation abides in the house of Zaccheus the publican 
from the moment he has believed. The form of the institution of the Holy Supper 
is almost identical with that of Paul, 1 Cor. 11. The sayings of Jesus on the cross 
related by Luke — His prayer for His executioners, His promise to the thief, and His 
last invocation to His Father — are all three words of grace and faith. The appear- 
ances of the risen Jesus correspond almost point for point to the enumeration of 
Paul, 1 Cor. 15. The command of Jesus to the apostles to " preach repentance and 
the remission of sins to all nations," is as it were the programme of that apostle's 
work ; and the scene which closes the Gospel, that of Jesus leaving His own in the 
act of blessing them, admirably represents its spirit. 

This assemblage of characteristic features belonging exclusively to Luke admits of 
no doubt that a special relation existed between the writing of this evangelist and the 
ministry of St. Paul ; and that granted, we can hardly help finding a hint of this rela- 
tion in the dedication addressed to Theophilus, no doubt a Christian moulded by 
Paul's teaching : " That thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein 
thou hast been instructed" (see p. 39). 

But this indisputable faet seems to be opposed by another not less evident— the 
presence in this same Gospel of a large number of elements wholly Jewish in their 
nature, or what is called at the present day the Ebionism of Luke. 

This same historian, so partial to Paul's' universalism, makes the new work begin 
in the sanctuary of the ancient covenant, in the holy place of the temple of Jerusa- 
lem. The persons called to take part in it are recommended to this divine privilege by 
their irreproachable fidelity to all legal observances (1 : 6-15). The Messiah who is 
about to be born shall ascend the throne of David his father ; His kingdom shall be the 
restored house of Jacob (vers. 32, 33) ; and the salvation which He will bring to His 
people shall have for its culminating point Israel's perfect celebration of worship freed 
from their enemies (vers. 74, 75). Jesus Himself is subject from the outset to all legal 
obligations ; He is circumcised and presented in the temple on the days and with all 
the rites prescribed, and His parents do not return to their house, it is expiessly said, 
•' till they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord. " At the age in- 
dicated by theocratic custom, He is brought for the first time to the feast of Passover, 
where, according to the narrative, " His parents went every year." As the condition 
of participating in the Messiah's kingdom, the people receive from the mouth of John 
the Baptist merely the appointment of certain works of righteousness and beneficence 
to be practised. If, in His ministry. Jesus has no scruple in violating the additions 
with which the doctors had surrounded the law as with a hedge— for example, in 
His Sabbatic miracles— He nevertheless remains subject to the Mosaic ordinance even 
in the matter of the Sabbath. He sends the healed leper to offer sacrifice at Jerusa- 
lem, as a testimony of His reverence for Moses. Eternal life consists, according to 
Him, in fulfilling the sum (10 : 26-28) or the commandments of the law (18 : 18-20). 
In the case of the woman whom He cures on the Sabbath day, He loves to assert her 
title as a daughter of Abraham (13 : 16). He goes the length even of affirming 
(16 : 17) that " not one tittle of the lato shall fail." The true reason of that perdition 
which threatens the Pharisees, represented by the wicked rich man, is their not 
hearing Moses and the prophets. Even at the very close of Jesus' ministry, the women 
who surround him, out of respect for the Sabbath, break off their preparations for 



526 COMMEKTAEY OK ST. LUKE. 

embalming His bod}' ; " and, it is expressly said, tliey rested on the Sabbath day accord- 
ing to the commandment* ' (23 : 56). Finally, it is Jerusalem which is to be the start- 
ing-point of the new preaching ; it is in this city that the apostles are to wait for 
power from on high. It is in the temple that they abide continually, after the ascen- 
sion. The narrative closes in the temple, as it was in the temple that it opened 
(24 : 53). 

If Paul's conception is really antinomian, hostile to Judaism and the law, and if 
Luke wrote in the interest of this vie*w, as is alleged by the Tubingen school, how are we 
to explain this second series of facts and doctrines, which is assuredly not less prominent 
in our Gospel than the first series ? Criticism here finds itself in a difficulty, which is 
betrayed by the diversity of explanations which it seeks to give of this fact. Volk- 
mar cuts the Gordian knot ; according to him, those Jewish elements have no exist- 
ence. The third Gospel is purely Pauline. That is easier to affirm than to demonstrate ; 
he is the only one of his, school who has dared to maintain this assertion, overthrown 
as it is by the mostt>bvious facts. Baur acknowledges the facts, and explains them 
by admitting aiater rehaudling of our Gospel. The first composition, the primitive 
Luke, being exclusively Pauline, Ebionite elements were introduced later by the 
anonymous author of our cauonical Luke, and that with a conciliatory view. But 
Zeller has perfectly proved to his master that this hypothesis of a primitive Luke 
different from ours is incompatible with the unity of tendency and style which pre- 
vails in our Gospel, and which extends even to the second part of the work, the book 
of Acts. The Jewish elements are not veneered on the narrative ; they belong to the 
substance of the history. And what explanation does Zeiler himself propose ? The 
author, personally a decided Paulinist, was convinced that, to get the system of his 
master admitted by the Judeo-Christian party, they must not be offended. He there- 
fore thought it prudent to mix up in his treatise pieces of both classes, some Pauline, 
fitted to spread his own view ; others Judaic, fitted to flatter the taste of readers till 
now opposed to Paul's party. From this Machiavelian scheme the work of Luke 
proceeded, with its two radically contradictory currents.* 

But before having recourse to an explanation so improbable both morally and ra- 
tionally, as we shall find when we come to examine it more closely wdien treating of 
the aim of our Gospel, is it not fair to inquire whether there is not a more natural one 
contrasting less offensively with that character of sincerity and simplicity which 
strikes every reader of Luke's narrative? Was not the Old Covenant with its legal, 
forms the divinely-appointed preparation for the new ? "Was not the new with its 
pure spirtuality the divinely-purposed goal of the old ? Had not Jeremiah already 
declared that the days were coming when God Himself would abolish the covenant 
which He had made at Sinai with the fathers of the nation, and when He would sub- 
stitute a ISTew Covenant, the essential character of which would be, that the law should 
be written no longer on tables of stone, but on the heart ; no longer before us, but in 
us (31 : 31-34) ? This promise clearly established the fact that the Messianic era 
would be at once the abolition of the law in the letter, and its eternal fulfilment in 

* Overbeck, another savant of the same school, in his commentary on the Acts (a 
re-edition of De Wette's), combats in his turn ihe theo^ of Zeller, and finds in the 
work of Luke the product, not of an ecclesiastical scheme, but of Paulinism in its 
decadence (see chap. 2 of this Conclusion). As to Keim, he has recourse to the 
hypothesis of an Ebionite Gospel, which was the first material on which Luke, the 
disciple of Paul, wrought (see chap. 3). We see : Tot capita, tot sensus. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 527 

the spirit. And such is precisely the animating thought of the Gospel history, as it has 
been traced by Luke ; his narrative depicts ihe gradual substitution of the dispensa- 
tion of the spirit for that of the letter. The Mosaic economy is the starting-point of 
his history ; Jesus Himself begins under its government ; it is under this divine shel- 
ter that He grows, and His work matures. Then the spirituality of the Gospel is 
formed and gradually developed in His person and work, and getting rid by degrees 
of its temporary wrapping, ends by shining forth in ail its brightness in the preach- 
ing arid work of St. Paul. Mosaic economy and spiritualily are not therefore, as 
criticism would have it, two opposite currents which run parallel or dash against one 
another in Luke's work. Between Ebionism and Paulinism there is no more contra- 
diction than between the blossom, under the protection of which the fruit forms, and 
that fruit itself, when it appears released from its rich covering. The substitution of 
fruit for flower is the result of an organic transformation ; it is the very end of vege- 
tation. Only the blossom does not fade away in a single day, an} r more than the fruit 
itself ripens in a single day. Jesus declares in Luke, that when new wine is offered 
to one accustomed to drink old wine, he turns away from it at once ; for he says : 
The old is belter. Agreeably to this principle, God does not deal abruptly with Israel ; 
for this people, accustomed to the comparatively easy routine of ritualism, He pro- 
vided a transition period intended to raise it gradually from legal servility to the per- 
ilous but glorious liberty of pure spirituality. This period is that of the development 
of Jesus Himself and of His work. The letter of the law was scrupulously respected, 
because the Spirit was not present to replace it ; this admirable and divine work is 
what the Gospel of Luke invites us to contemplate : Jesus, as a minister of the cir- 
cwncitiori (Rom. 15 : 8), becoming the organ of the Spirit. And even after Pentecost, 
the Spirit still shows all needful deference to the letter of the divine law, and reaches 
its emancipation only in the way of rendering to it uniform homage ; such is the 
scene set before us by the book of Acts in the conduct of the apostles, and especially 
in that of St. Paul. To explain therefore the two series of apparently heterogeneous 
pieces which we have indicated, we need neither Volkmar's audacious denial respect- 
ing the existence of one of them.nor the subtile hypothesis of two different Paul inisms 
in Luke, the one more, the other less hostile to Judeo-Christianity (Baur), nor the 
supposition of a shameless deception on the part of the forger who composed this 
writing (Zeller). It is as little necessary to ascribe to the author, with Overbeck, gross 
misunderstanding of the true system of his master Paul, or to allege, as Keim seems 
to do, that he clumsily placed in juxtaposition, aud without being aware of it, two 
sorts of materials drawn from sources of opposite tendencies. All such explanations 
of a system driven to extremity vanish before the simple fact that the Ebionism and 
Paulinism of Luke belong both alike, as legitimate, necessary, successive elements, 
to the real history of Jesus and His apostles— the one as the inevitable point of de- 
parture, the other as the intended goal ; and that the period which separated the 
one fiom the other served only to replace the one gradually by the other. By giv- 
ing those two principles place with equal fulness in his narrative, Luke, far from 
guiding two contradictory tendencies immorally or unskilfully, has kept by the pure 
objectivity of history. Nothing proves this better than that very appearance of con- 
tradiction which he could brave, and which gives modern criticism so much to do. 

Let it be remarked that the truth of the so-called Pauline elements in Luke's Gos- 
pel is fully borne out by the presence of similar elements in the other two synoptics. 
Ritschl, in his beautiful work on the beginnings of the ancient Catholic Church, shows 



528 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

how the one saying of Jesus, preserved in Mark and Matthew as well as in Luke : 
" The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath," already implied the future abolition 
of the whole Mosaic law. The same is evidently true of the following (Matt. 15 and 
Mark 7) : " Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man ; but that which cometh 
out of the mouth, this defileth him." The whole Levitical law fell before this maxim 
logically carried out. We may also cite the saying, Matt. 8 : 11 : "1 say unto you, that 
many shall come from the east and west ; . . . but the children of the kingdom 
shall' be cast out," though it is arbitrarily alleged that it was added later to the apos- 
tolic Matthew ; then that which announces the substitution of the Gentiles for Israel, 
in the parable of the husbandmen : " The kingdom shall be taken from you, and 
given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof" (21 : 43), a saying which Matthew 
alone has preserved to us ; finally, the command given to the apostles to go and bap- 
tize all nations (28 : 19), which necessarily belonged to the original Matthew : for, 1. 
The appearance with which it is connected is announced long before (Matt. 26 : 32) ; 
2. Because it is the only one related in this Gospel, and therefore could not be want- 
ing in the original record ; 3. Because Jesus certainly did not appear to His disciples 
to say nothing to them. But the most decisive saying related by our three synoptics 
is the parable of the old garment and the piece of new cloth (see on this passage, 
5 : 36) Paul has affirmed nothing more trenchant respecting the opposition between 
the law and the gospel. 

The fundamental principles of Paulinism, the abolition of the law, the rejection 
of Israel and the calling of the Gentiles, are not therefore any importation of Paul or 
Luke into the gospel of Jesus. They belonged to the Master's teaching, though the 
time had not yet come for developing all their consequences practically. 

This general question resolved, let us examine in detail the points which criticism 
still attempts to make good in regard to the subject under discussion. It is alleged 
that, under the influence of Paul's doctrine, Luke reaches a conception of the person 
of Christ which transcends that of the other two synoptics. " He softens the passages 
which had become embarrassing from the standpoint of a more exalted idea of the 
divinity of Jesus" (Renan) ; for example, he omits Matt. 24 : 36, which ascribes the 
privilege of omniscience to the Father only. But did he do so intentionally ? Was 
he acquainted with this saying ? We have just seen another omission which he makes 
(p. 488) ; we shall meet with many more still, in which the proof of an opposite ten- 
dency might be quite as legitimately alleged. Is it not Luke who makes the centurion 
say, " Certainly this was a righteous man," while the other two represent him as say- 
ing, " This was the Son of God f" What a feeble basis for the edifice of criticism do 
such differences present ! 

The great journey across the countries situated between Galilee and Samaria was 
invented, according to Baur, with the view of bringing into relief the non-Israel it ish 
country of Samaria. Luke thus sought to justify Paul's work among the Gentiles. 
But would Luke labor at the same moment to overthrow what he is building up, by 
inventing the refusal of the Samaritans to receive Jesus ? Besides, it is wholly untrue 
that Samaria is the scene of the journey related in this part. Was it then in Samaria 
that Jesus conversed with a doctor of the law (10 : 25), that He dined with a Pharisee, 
that He came into conflict with a company of scribes (11 : 37-53), that He cured in 
the synagogue a daughter of Abraham (13 : 16), etc. etc. ? There is found, no doubt, 
among the ten lepers one who is of Samaritan origin (17 : 16) ; but if this circum- 
stance can lead us to suppose that the scene passes in Samaria, the presence of nine 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 529 

Jewish lepers should make it appear nine times more probable that it transpires on 
Israelitish tenitory. 

In the instructions given to the Twelve, Luke omits the saying, " Go not into the 
way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not." Neither do 
we find the answer addressed to the Canaanitish woman, "lam not sent but unto the 
lost sheep of the house of Israel." But, as to the first, Mark omits it as well as Luke, 
Could this also arise from a dogmatic tendency? But how, in that case, should he 
relate the second as well as Matthew? The first then was simply wanting in his 
source ; why not also in Luke's, which in this very narrative seems to have had the 
greatest conformity to that of Mark ? As to the second saying, it belongs not only 
to a Darrative, but to a whole c^cle of narratives which is completely wautino- in 
Luke (two whole chapters). Besides, does not Luke also omit the peculiarly Pau- 
line saying, " Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and ye shall find 
rest unto your souls ?" Could this also be a dogmatical omission ? And as to the 
saying, " This gospel of the kingdom shall be pleached over all the earth," in con- 
nection with which Holtzrnann himself asks the Tubingen critics whether Luke 
passes it over in silence in a Pauline interest ! Those declarations were simply want- 
ing in his documents. Why not also those particularistic sayings ? They would cer- 
tainly not have caused Luke more embarrassment than they did to Matthew, who 
sees in them no contradiction to the command which closes his Gospel, " Go and 
baptize all nations." It is evident that the prohibition addressed to the disciples 
(Matt. 10) was only temporary, and applied only to the time during which Jesus as a 
rule restricted His sphere of action to Israel ; from the time that His death and res- 
urrection released Him from His national surroundings, all was changed. 

Luke has a grudge at the Twelve ; he seeks to depreciate them : such is the thesis 
which Baur has maintained, and which has made way in Fiance. He proves it by 
8 : 53, 54, where he contrives to make Luke say that the disciples laughed our Lord 
to scorn, and that He drove them from the apartment ; and yet the words, " know- 
ing that she was dead." clearly prove that the persons here spoken of were those who 
had witnessed the death of the young girl ; and ver. 51 excludes the view that He 
put the disciples out, for He had just brought them within the house (see the exe- 
gesis). He proves it further by 9 : 82, where Luke says that Peter and the other two 
disciples were heavy with sleep ; as if this remark were not intended to take off from 
the strangeness of Peter's saying which follows, and which is mentioned by the three 
evangelists. But the chief proof discovered by Baur of this hostile intention to the 
Twelve is his account of the sending of the seventy disciples, and the way in which 
Luke applies to this mission a considerable part of the instructions given to the 
Twelve in Matt. 10. But if the sending of the seventy disciples were an invention of 
Luke, after thus bringing them on the scene, he would make them play a part in the 
sequel of the Gospel history, and especially in the first Christian missions related in 
the Acts, while from that moment he says not a word more about them ; the Twelve 
remain after, as well as before that mission, the only important persons ; it is to 
them that Jesus gives the command to preach to the Gentiles (24 : 45 et seq.) ; it is 
from them that everything proceeds in the book of Acts ; and when Philip and 
Stephen come on the scene, Luke does not designate them, as it would have been so 
easy for him to do, as having belonged to the number of the seventy. Keim him- 
self acknowledges (p. 70) " that it is impossible to ascribe the invention of this his- 
tory to Luke ;" and in proof of this he alleges the truly Jewish spirit of the saying 



530 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

"with which. Jesus receives the seventy on their return. So little was it suspected in 
the earliest times, even within the bosom of Judeo- Christian communities, that this 
narrative could be a Pauline invention, that it is frequently quoted in the " Clemen- 
tine Homilies. " If, in narrating the sending of the Twelve, Luke did not quote all 
the instructions given by Matthew (chap. 10), the same omission takes place in Mark, 
who cannot, however, be suspected of any anti-apostolic tendency ; this harmony 
proves that the omission is due to the sources of the two writers. 

If Luke had the intention of depreciating the Twelve, would he alone describe the 
solemn act of their election ? Would he place it at the close of a whole night of 
prayer (chap. 6) ? Would he mention the glorious promise of Jesus to make the 
apostles sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel ? Would he omit the assent 
which they all give in Matthew and Mark to the presumptuous declaration of Peter : 
lam ready to go with Thee even unto death ? Would he make no mention of their 
shameful flight at Gethsemane, which is related by the other two ? Would he ex- 
cuse their sleeping on that last evening by saying that the}' were sleeping for sorrow ; 
and their unbelief on the day of resurrection, by saying that it vt&sforjoy they could 
not believe (those details are peculiar to Luke) ? Luke does not speak of the ambi- 
tious request of Zebedee's two sons, and of the altercation which ensued with the 
other disciples ; he applies to the relation between the Jews and Gentiles that severe 
warning, the first part of which is addressed in Matthew to the Twelve : " and there 
are first which shall be last," and the second part of which : " and there are last 
which shall be first," might so easily have been turned to the honor of Paul. If there 
is one of the synoptics who holds up to view the misunderstandings and moral de- 
fects of the apostles, and the frequent displeasure of Jesus with them, it is Mark, and 
not Luke. 

In respect to Peter, who it is alleged is peculiarly the object of Luke's antipathy, 
this evangelist certainly omits the saying so honoring to this apostle : " Thou art 
Peter," etc., as well as the narrative, Matt. 14 : 28-31, in which Peter is privileged to 
walk on the waters by the side of our Lord. But he also omits in the former case 
that terrible rebuke which immediately follows : " Get thee behind me, Satan ; thou 
art an offence unto me." And what is the entire omission of this whole scene, com- 
pared with the conduct of Mark, who omits the first part favorable to Peter, and re- 
lates in detail the second, where he is so sternly reprimanded ! If it was honoring to 
Peter to walk on the waters, it was not very much so to sink the next moment, and 
to bring down on himself the apostrophe : " O thou of little faith !" The omission 
of this incident has therefore nothing suspicious about it. Is not the history of Peter's 
call related in Luke (chap. 5) in a way still more glorious for him than in Matthew 
and Mark ? Is he not presented, from beginning to end of this narrative, as the prin- 
cipal person, in a sense the only one (vers. 4, 10)-? Is it not he again who, in the first 
days of Jesus' ministry at Capernaum, plays the essential part (Luke 4 : 38-44 ?) 
On the eve of the death of Jesus, is it not he who is honored, along with John, with 
the mission of making ready the Passover, and that in Luke only ? Is not his denial 
related in Luke with much more reserve than in Matthew, where the imprecations of 
Peter upon himself are expressly mentioned ? Is it not in Luke that Jesus declares 
that He has devoted to Peter a special prayer, and expects from him the strengthening 
of all the other disciples (22 : 32) ? Is he not the first of the apostles to whom, accord- 
ing to Luke (23 : 34) as according to Paul (1 Cor. 15), the risen Jesus appears ? And 
despite all this, men dare to represent the third Gospel as a satire directed against the 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 531 

Twelve, and against Peter in particular (the anonymous Saxon) ;* and M. Burnouf 
ventures to characterize it thus in the Mevue des Deux Mondes (December, 1865) : 
"Luke seeks to attenuate the authority of the Twelve ... ; he depreciates 
Peter ; he takes from the Twelve the merit of having founded the religion of Christ, 
by adding to them seventy envoys whose mission is contrary to the most authoritative 
Israelitish usages." M. Burnouf forgets to tell us what those usages are, and whether 
Jesus held Himself always strictly bound to Jewish usages. On the other hand, 
Zeller, the pronounced disciple of Baur, finds himself obliged to make this confes- 
sion (" Apostelgesch. " p. 450) : " We cannot suppose in the case of Luke any real 
hostility to the Twelve, because he mentions circumstances omitted by Matthew 
himself which exalt them, and because he omits others which are to their discredit." 

Once more, in what is called the Jewish tendency of Luke, there is a point which 
has engaged the attention of criticism : we mean the partiality expressed by this Gos- 
pel for the poorer classes, its Ebionism (strictly so called) ! f " Luke's heresy," as 
De "Wette has it. It appears 1 : 53, 6 : 20, 21, where the poor appear to be saved, 
the rich condemned, as such ; 12 : 33, 34 ; 16 : 9, 23-25 ; 18 : 22-25, where salvation 
is connected with almsgiving and the sacrifice of earthly goods, damnation with the 
keeping of them. But, 1. We have seen that there is a temporary side in these pre- 
cepts ; see especially on 12 : 33, 34 ; 18 : 22-25. Does not Paul also (1 Cor. 7) rec- 
ommend to Christians not to possess, but " to possess as though they possessed not?" 
2. Poverty and riches by no means produce those effects inevitably and without 
the concurrence of the will. Poverty dees not save ; it prepares for salvation by pro- 
ducing lowliness : wealth does not condemn ; it may lead to damnation, by harden- 
ing the heart and producing forgetfulness of God and His law : such is the meaning 
of 6 : 21-25 when lightly understood : of 16 : 29-31 ; of 18 : 27 (the salvation of the 
rich impossible with men, but possible with God) ; finally, of Acts 5 : 4, where the right 
of property in the case of Ananias and Sapphira is expressly reserved by Peter, and 
their punishment founded solely on their falsehood. 3. The alleged " heresy of 
Luke" is also that of Matthew and Mark (narrative of the rich young man), and con- 
sequently of our Lord Himself. Let us rather recognize that he giving up of prop- 
erty appears in the teaching of Jesus, either as a measure arising from the necessity 
imposed on His disciples of accompanying Him outwardly, or as a voluntary and 
optional offering of charity, applicable to all times. 

If now, setting aside critical discussion, we seek positively to characterize the re- 
ligious complexion of Luke's narrative, the fundamental lone appears to us to be, as 
Lange says (" Leben Jesu," i. p. 258 et seq.) : " the revelation of divine mercy," or, 
better still, according to Paul's literal expression (Tit. 3:4): the manifestation of 
divine philanthropy. 

To this characteristic there is a second corresponding one : Luke loves to exhibit 
in the human soul, in the very midst of its fallen state, the presence of some ray of 
the divine image. He speaks of that honest and good heart, which receives the seed 
of the gospel as soon as it is scattered on it ; he points to the good Samaritan per- 
forming instinctively the things contained in the law (Rom. 2 : 14) ; in the case of 

* Zeller himself says (" Apostelgesch." p. 436) : " In reality, there are not to be 
found in this Gospel any of the indirect attacks, insults, malevolent insinuations, and 
sarcasms against Judeo-Christianity and the Judeo-Christian apostles which the anony- 
mous Saxon seeks in it." 

f It is well known that this term arises from a Hebrew word signifying poor. 



532 GOMMESTTAEY 0^ ST. LUKE. 

Zaccheus he indicates the manifestation of natural probity and beneficence, as he will 
do in the book of Acts, in respect to Cornelius and several others, especially some of 
the Roman magistrates with whom Paul has to do. Therein we recognize the Greek 
ideal of the na/ids KayaQoS. 

With the first of those two characteristics there is undoubtedly connected that 
universalism of grace so often pointed out in Luke ; with the second, perhaps, the 
essential character which he unfolds in the person of Christ : humanity working out 
in Him its pure and. normal development ; the child, the young man growing in 
grace and wisdom as He grows in stature ; the man comes out in His emotion at the 
sight of a mother bereaved of her son, of His native country on the eve of ruin, of 
His executioners who are striking themselves while they strike Him, of a thief who 
humbles himself. We understand the whole : it is tlie Son of man, born an infant, 
but through all the stages of life and death becoming the High Priest of His brethren, 
whom He leaves in the act of blessing them. So that this history is summed up in 
two features : divine compassion stooping down to man ; human aspirations entering 
into perfect union with God in the person of Him who is to bring back all others to 
God. 

With such a history before us, what narrow unworthy particularistic tendeucy 
could possibly exist in the writer who understood and worked upon it ? Such an ob- 
ject imposes objectivity on the historian.* 

III. — Literary Point of View. 

A. The first feature which distinguishes Luke's work in this respect is the pres- 
ence of & prologue, written in a Greek style of perfect purity, and in which the author 
gives account of the origin of his book. We have already shown (p. 33) what 
is the necessary inference from this fact, which has no analogy either in Matthew or 
Mark, or even in John, and which would suffice to demonstrate the Hellenic origin 
of the author, and the high degree of classical culture which prevailed in the circle, 
with a view to which he wrote. 

B. The chief question which has been raised in regard, to the literary character of 
Luke's composition is whether it belongs to the class of collectanea, simple compila- 
tions, or whether in all its details it observes a consecutive plan. It is well known 
that Schleiermacher took the first view. Our Gospel is in his eyes an aggregate of 
pieces separately composed and put together by a later compiler. In Ewald's opin- 
ion also the author is only a collector. Holtzmann himself (article on the Acts, in the 
" Bible Dictionary" published by Schenkel) calls our Gospel " a compilation without 
any well-defined plan ;" he extends the same judgment to the Acts. This opinion is 
combated by several critics. Hilgenfeld speaks of " the artistic unity" of Luke's 
narrative. Zeller acknowledges ' ' that a rigorous plan prevails throughout the entire 

* This conclusion is admitted by two of the most distinguished representatives of 
modern criticism. Holtzmann (p. 401): "Just a3 the most ancient demonstrable 
Gospel document, the " Logia," was written without the least regard to any dog- 
matic interest ... so the third Gospel, the most extensive work of the synop 
tic literature, betrays the tendency of its author only in its arrangement and choice 
of materials, and in slight modifications which bear onty on the form of delineation." 
Reuss. (sec. 209) : " We shall be nearer the truth if we assert that it was in no party 
interest, but by means of a disinterested historical investigation, that the materials 
of this narrative were collected." 



Commentary o>s" st. luke. 533 

work" (Gospel and Acts). M. Renan sees in it " a work written throughout by the 
same hand, and with the most perfect unity." We adhere fully to this second view. 
We have already pointed out that one single idea inspires the whole narrative, and 
has determined the choice of its materials, namely, that of the development of the 
Christian work (1 : 1), from the twofold standpoint of its organic growth and of its 
breach with the lsraelitish people. Once in possession of this idea, we easily com- 
prehend the course of the narrative. The first two chapters of the Gospel are an in- 
troduction, in which Luke gives the preparation for the new work in that pure Being 
placed by God in the bosom of humanity. The work itself begins with the baptism of 
Jesus in chap. 3. It comprises three parts : 1. The Galilean ministry ; Jesus draws to 
Him the elements of His future Church, and lays down in the apostolate the principle 
of its organization. 2. The journey from Galilee to Judea ; this is a transition period : 
the work extends outwardly while it is strengthened spiritually ; but the hostility of 
the official representatives of the nation, the scribes and Pharisees, lighted up already 
in the previous period, goes on increasing. 3. The sojourn at Jerusalem : the cross 
violently breaks the last link between Israel and its King. But the resurrection and 
ascension, freeing Jesus from every national relation, and raising Him to a free and 
glorious existence, suited to the nature of the Son of God (Rom. 1 : 3, 4), make Him 
in the words of Peter, the Lord of all (Acts 10 : 36). The lsraelitish Messiah by birth, 
He becomes by His death and ascension the King of the universe. From that time forth 
His people is the human race. The ascension, which forms the climax of the Gospel 
history, is at the same time the starting-point for the history of the Acts. " On the 
one side we ascend to this summit ; on the other we descend from it."* Hence the 
double narration of the fact. It belongs, indeed, to both writings — to the one as its 
crown, to the other as its basis. This repetition does not arise, as a superficial criti- 
cism supposes, from the juxtaposition of two different traditions regarding that event.f 
What sensible writer would adopt such a course ? The ascension is the bond which 
joins together the two aspects of the divine work — that in which Jesus rises from 
the manger to the throne, and that in which, from the throne on high, He acts upon 
humanity, creating, preserving, and extending the Church. It forms part of the 
history of Jesus and of that of the Church. 

Between the work which is wrought in Jesus and that wrought in the Church, 
and which is described in Acts, there is a correspondence which is exhibited by the 
parallelism of plan in the two books. After an introduction which describes the com- 
munity of believers as already formed, though yet unknown (Acts 1, comp.with Luke 
1 and 2), Pentecost introduces it on the theatre of history, as His baptism called Jesus 
to His public activity. 1. Here begins, chap. 2, the first part of the narrative, which 
extends to the end of chap. 5 ; it relates, first, the founding of the church of Jerusalem, 
the mother and model of nil others ; then the obstinate resistance which the preaching 
of the apostles met with from the Jewish authorities aud the mass of the nation. 2. 
The second part, perhaps the most remarkable in many respects, delineates, like the 
second part of the Gospel, a transition period. It extends to the end of chap. 12. 
The author has collected and enumerated in this piece the whole series of providential 

* M. Felix Bovet. 

t Any more than in the case of the double narrative of the creation of man in Gen- 
esis (chaps. 1 and 2). Man is described, chap. 1, as the goal of the development of na- 
ture ; chap. 2, as the basis of the development of history. Nature rises to him ; his- 
tory goes forth from him. 



9*34: COHMEH^ABY OX Sfr LtTKE* 

events by which the way was paved for transferring the kingdom of God from the 
Jews to the Gentiles, the subject of the third part. First, there is the ministry of 
Stephen, who dies for having said " that Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy the temple, 
and shall change the customs which Moses delivered" (6 : 14). There is the ministry 
of Philip (chap. 8), who makes the first breach on the Gentile world by the conver- 
sion of the Samaritans, in which Peter and John themselves come to take part. There 
is, by the hand of the same Philip, the baptism of a man who was doubly excluded 
from the ancient covenant as a Gentile and as a eunuch (Dent. 23 : 1). There is the 
conversion of Saul, who is to be the principal instrument of the work about to begin, 
the persecutor but the successor of Stephen. There is through the ministry of Peter 
the baptism of the Gentile Cornelius and his family, in consequence of the vision by 
which God taught that apostle that the wall of separation raised by the law between 
Israel and the Gentiles was thenceforth broken down. There is, as an effect of the 
dispersion of the church of Jerusalem, the foundation of the church of Antioch, the 
first church of heathendom, the point from which Paul will take his course to the 
heathen world, his permanent basis of operations, the Jerusalem of the Gentile world. 
Those six events, apparently accidental, but all converging to the same end, are 
chosen and grouped by the author with incomparable skill, to show, as it were, to 
the eye the ways in which the divine wisdom prepared for the approaching work, the 
conversion of heathendom. Chap. 12 concludes this part. It relates the martyrdom 
of James, the attempted martyrdom of Peter, and the sudden death of their persecu- 
tor, the last great representative of the Jewish nation, Herod Agrippa — persecuting 
Israel struck dead in the person of its last monarch. 3. The third part relates the 
foundation of the Church among the Gentiles by St. Paul's three journeys. His im- 
prisonment at Jerusalem at the close of those three missionary tours, and the sur- 
rounding circumstances, form a sort of counterpart to the story of the Passion in the 
Gospel. It is the last act in the rejection of the Gospel by Israel, to which the con- 
duct of the elders of the Roman synagogue toward Paul (chap. 28) puts the finishing 
stroke. What could be grander or clearer than this plan ? We have yet to wait for 
a history of the Reformation, giving us, within the space of a hundred pages, as 
complete and precise a view of that great religious revolution as that which Luke has 
left us in the Acts, of the yet profounder revolution by which God transferred His 
kingdom from the Jews to the Gentiles. 

G. If the plan of Luke is admirable from the controlling unity to which he sub- 
ordinates so great a variety of materials, the style of the Gospel and of the Acts pre- 
sents a similar phenomenon. On the one hand it is a striking medley. To the pro- 
logue of classic Greek, classic both in construction and vocabulary, there succeed nar- 
ratives of the infancy, written in a style which is rather a decalque * from the Ara- 
maic than true Greek. It is quite clear that the author, after writing the prologue in 
his own style, here uses an Aramaic document or a translation from the Aramaic. 
We shall not repeat the proofs of this fact which we have given in our exegesis ; in 
a measure they extend to the whole Gospel. As to the question whether it is Luke 
himself who has translated it into Greek, or whether he used a record already trans- 
lated, we shall answer it immediately. For the present, we repeat that the proof 
which Bleek finds to support the second view in the expression avaro?.?/ e£ vfovs, i. 78, 

* The name for the copy of a picture traced on transparent paper placed over the 
original.— Tr. 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. g 535 

is without the least value (see the exegesis). Finally, besides the prologue written in 
pure Greek, and the parts which follow, all saturated with Aramaisms, we find other 
parts, such as chap, 14 : 7-15 : 32, 22, 23, the Hebrew coloring of which is much less 
pronounced, and which presented nothing or almost nothing offensive to Greek ears^ 
It is not probable that they proceed from an Aramaic document, any more than that 
Luke composed them freely. In the first case they would contain more Hebraisms ; 
in the second, they would be still more completely free from them. It is therefore 
probable that those passages were composed in Greek by Luke or his predecessor, not 
from an Aramaic document, but from an oral tradition in that language. 

The same variety of style reappears in the Acts. The first parts of this book be- 
tray an Aramaic source in every line. This character gradually disappears, and the 
last parts of the book, in which the author relates the scenes in which he seems to 
have been personally present, are written in as pure Greek as the prologue of the 
Gospel. 

On the other hand, and notwithstanding this medley, the style of Luke has in 
many respects the seal of a well-marked unity. Not only is his vocabulary every- 
where more extensive than that of the other evangelists, as might be expected from a 
writer familiar with classic Greek ; for example, he displays in a far higher degree 
the facility with which the Greek language indefinitely multiplies its stock of verbs, 
by compounding the simple ones with prepositions and otherwise ; but he has also 
certain expressions which exclusively belong to him, or which he uses with marked 
predilection, and which are scattered uniformly over all parts of his two writings, 
even those which are most evidently translated from the Aramaic. And this is the 
proof that Luke in those pieces did not make use of a translation already made, but 
was himself the translator.* 

There are also certain correspondences alleged in vocabulary and syntax between 
Luke's style and that of Paul. Holtzmann enumerates about 200 expressions or 
phrases common to those two authors, and more or less foreign to all the other !N. T. 
writers, f The anonymous Saxon has taken advantage of this fact in support of his 
hypothesis, according to which Paul himself was the author of the third Gospel. 
But this proof is far from satisfactory ; the phenomenon is explained, on the one 
hand, by the fact that Paul and Luke are the only two writers of the N". T. who were 
educated amid classical surroundings ; on the other, by the personal relations which 
they kept up so long with one another ; at least, if we are to trust the tradition which 
ascribes the Gospel to Luke (see chap. ii. of this Conclusion). 

The study which we have now made of the distinctive characteristics of Luke's 
Gospel supplies us with the necessary data for reaching the conclusions for which 
we have to inquire regarding the origin of this composition. 

* Zeller has devoted two profound essays to this element exclusively belonging to 
Luke in his two narratives, the one in the " Theol. Jahrb." 1843, p. 467 et seq., the 
other in his " Apostelgesch. " p. 390 et seq. He enumerates 139 expressions used 
preferentially, and 134 terms and phrases used exclusively, or almost exclusively, by 
Luke in the two works. The following are examples selected at random : 
ovfifiaXXELv, TTEptfidfiTVEiv, and others like them ; civd^Tjipci, 6 vxpioroS, £yU0o/3of, ivTpopoS, 
itapaxpfjfia, ktjijS, naBe^S, kvumov, etc. ; nal civtoS, tie nai (gradation), tovto 6ti, t'l otl, to 
before a proposition which serves as a substantive, KaBon, plv oiv, kcli. ydp, idov yap, 
eleye 6i (in the sense so often pointed out in our commentary), sk' atyBelas, e£ ?S 
f/pepas, Karci ZBoS or to eluBdc, or rd eiBiopivov, etc. 

f For example : avB' uv, al?' oi)6e, dvTiXapf3dveoBai, cK/ca/ceiv, napddetooS, otrwrof, 
dvTcnrodopa, alvelv Tdv 6e6v } ciTevifriv, dtayyeMeiv, dire^mfrtv, etc. 



536 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

CHAPTER II. 

THE COMPOSITION OF THE THIRD GOSPEL. 

We have before us in this chapter the four following points : The aim of the 
Gospel, the time of its composition, the author to whom it is to be ascribed, the place 
where he composed it. 

I — The Aim. 

The common aim of our Gospels is to produce faith in Hini whom they describe 
as the Saviour of the world. But each of them pursues this aim in a particular way : 
Matthew, by bringing the history of our Lord into connection with the Messianic 
prophecies of which it is the fulfilment ; Mark, by seeking to reproduce the unique 
splendor which rayed forth from His person ; John, by relating the most' salient testi- 
monies and facts which led His disciples to recognize and adore Him as the Son of 
God. What is the means by which Luke wishes to gain the same end V 

It was thought enough, even down to our own day, to answer that he had sought 
to trace the Gospel history as faithfully as possible with a view to believers among the 
Gentiles.* This solution is not precise enough for the authors of the critical school, 
which seeks party tendencies everywhere in our sacred writings. By combining with 
the study of the Gospel that of the Acts, the objects of which seemed more pro- 
nounced, they have come to the conclusion that the writings of Luke are nothing else 
than a disguised defence of the person and preaching of Paul, in opposition to the 
persons and teaching of the Twelve ; a history more or less fictitious intended to" gain 
favor for that apostle with the Judeo-Christian party, which, down to the second cen- 
tury, remained obstinately hostile to him. Zeller, in particular, has developed this 
thesis in a work which might be called classic, if erudition and sagacity could stand 
for justice and impartiality.! MM. Reuss (§ 210) and Nicolas (p. 268) also ascribe to 
the Acts the aim of reconciling the Judeo-Christian and Pauline parties, but without 
accusing the author of wilfully altering the facts.:}: 

It must indeed be confessed, especially if we take account of the narrative of the 
Acts, that it is very difficult to believe that in writing this history the author had only 
the general intention of giving as complete and faithful a view of the facts as pos- 
sible. A more particular aim seems to show itself in the choice of the materials which 
he uses, as well as in the numerous omissions which he makes. Whence comes it 
that, of all the apostles, Peter and Paul are the only ones brought on the scene ? How 
are we to explain the marvellous parallelism between them established by the narra- 
tive? Whence the predilection of the author for everything relating to the person of 

* So Origen (Eus. H. E. vi. 25), Eichhorn, Schleiermacher, De Wette, Bleek, stop 
short at this general definition. From this point of view, the Acts are simply re- 
garded as a history of the apostolic age or of the first missions. 

f Zeller (p. 363) calls the book of Acts " a treaty of peace proposed to the Judeo- 
Christians by a Paulinist, who wishes to purchase from them the acknowledgment of 
Gentile Christianity by a series of concessions made to Judaism." 

% M. Nicolas thus expresses the aim of the Acts : " To extinguish the discussions 
of the two parties, and lead them to forget their old feuds by showing them that their 
founders . . . had labored with a full understanding with one another for the 
propagation of Christianity. 



COMMENTARY OJS ST. LUKE. o37 

the latter ; the thrice repeated narrative of his conversion, the detailed account of the 
varied phases of his trial, the peculiarly marked notice of his relations to the Roman 
magistrates ? Why relate in detail the founding of the churches of Greece, and not 
devote a line to that of so important a church as Alexandria (to which Paul remained 
a stranger) V To what purpose the circumstantial recital of Paul's voyage to Rome V 
And why does the account of his arrival close the book so abruptly V Is not Over- 
beck right in saying that, in reality, " the subject of the book is not the gospel, but 
the gospel preached by Paul. " Even the first part, tuat which relates to Peter, seems 
to be only a preparation for the account of Paul's ministry. The author seems to 
say : Great as Peter was in his work in Israel, Paul was not one whit behind him in 
his among the Gentiles ; the extraordinary miracles and successes by which God 
accredited the former were repeated in no less a measure in the case of the other.* 

We do not think that, the recent defenders of the historical trustworthiness of the 
Gospel and the Acts* (Mayerhoff, Baumgarten, Lekebusch) have succeeded altogether 
in parrying this blow. They have attempted to explain part of those facts, while 
admitting that the theme of the Acts was solely the propagation of the gospel from 
Jerusalem to Rome ; but this very demonstration breaks down at several points, and 
especially in the last chapter. For w T hen Paul reaches this capital it is not he who 
brings the gospel to it ; rather it is the gospel which receives him there (28 : 15) ; and 
in what follows, the founding of a church at Rome by Paul is not related. As Over- 
beck says, " The Acts relate, not how the gospel, but how Paul, reached Rome." 

While fully recognizing that the purely historical aim is unsatisfactory, it seems 
to us that that which Zeller proposes is inadmissible. Not only, as Bleek observes, 
must the coldly calculated deception, which would be inevitable in an author invent- 
ing a narrative with the view of forging history, appear absolutely improbable to 
every reader who gives himself up to the impression which so simple a composition 
produces ; but besides, how are we to set before our minds the result proposed to be 
gained in this way ? Did the author mean, asks Overbeck, to influence the Judeo- 
Christians to unite with Paul's party ? But in that case it was a most unskilful expe- 
dient to set before them the conduct of the Jewish nation in the odious light in which 
it appears throughout the entire history of the Acts, from the persecutions against the 
apostles in the first chapters, down to the dark plots in which the Sanhedrim itself 
does not shrink from taking part against the life of St. Paul. It must, then, be by 
acting on his own party, the Paulinists, that the author hoped to effect the fusion of 
the two camps. By presenting the picture of the harmony between Paul and the 
Twelve at Jerusalem (Acts 15), he proposed to bring the Paulinists of his time to con- 
cede to the Judeo- Christians, as Paul had formerly done to the apostles, the observ- 
ance of the Mosaic rites. But the Judeo- Christians themselves of that period no 
longer held to this concession. It appears from the " Clementine Homilies" that cir- 
cumcision was abandoned by this party. The author of the Acts, a zealous Paulinist, 
must then have asked his own to yield to their adversaries more than the latter them- 
selves required ! Finally, what purpose, on Zeller's supposition, would be served by 
the entire transition part (chap. 6-12) ? This elaborate enumeration of the circum- 

* It is known that Schneckenburger regarded this parallel between Peter and Paul 
as the principal thought and aim of the Acts (without thinking that the truth of the 
narrative was thereby compromised). It is only as a curiosum that we refer to the 
opinion of Aberle, who regards the Acts as a memoir prepared with a view to Paul's 
defence in his trial before the imperial tribunal. 



538 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

stances which went to pave the way for the free evangelization of the Gentile world 
might and should have its place in a truthful and sincere narrative of the progress of 
the Christian work ; it was a digression in a romance intended to raise Paul to the 
level of Peter. The modified form given by MM. Reuss and Nicolas to this con- 
ciliation-hypothesis has no force unless there is ascribed to the apostolic Judeo-Chris- 
tianity and Paulinism a meaning and importance which, in our opinion, it never had 
(see chap. 4). What hypothesis does Overbeck substitute for that of Zeller, which 
he so well combats ? According to this critic, the author of the Acts does not think 
of reconciling the two camps. It is the Pauline party alone which, working on its 
own account, here attempts by the pen of one of its members " to come to an under- 
standing with its past, its peculiar origin, and its first founder, Paul " (p. xxi.). Such, 
after so much beating about, is the last word of Baur's school on the aim of the writ- 
ings of Luke. It is on the face of it a somewhat strange idea, that of a party com- 
posing a historical book to come to a clear understanding with its past. It is not, 
however, inconceivable. But if the author really means to come to an understanding 
about the beginnings of his party, it is because he knows those beginnings, and be- 
lieves in them. The past is to him a definite quantity by which he measures the 
present. But in that case, how are we to explain the wilful falsifications of history in 
which, according to Overbeck himself, he indulged ? The miracles of St. Peter in the 
first part of the Acts are set down to the account of legend ; but those of Paul, in the 
second, were knowingly invented by the author. To restore the past at one's own 
caprice, is that to come to a clear understanding with it ? Much more, the author of 
the Acts, not content with peopling the night of the past with imaginary events, went 
the length of putting himself " into systematic opposition" (p. xxxvi.) to what Paul 
says of himself in his epistles. To contradict systematically, that is to say, know- 
ingly, the best authenticated documents proceeding from the founder of the party — 
such is the way " to come to light regarding the person of that chief " ! The Tubin- 
gen criticism has entangled itself in a cul-de-sac from which it cannot escape except 
by renouncing its first error, the opposition between the principles of Paul and those 
of the Twelve. We shall return to this question in our last chapter. 

The repemsal of the third Gospel is enough to convince any one that its author 
seriously pursues a historical aim. This appears from the numerous chronological, 
geographical, and other like notices of which his work is full (Quirinius, 2:2; the 
cycle of dates, 3:1; the age of Jesus, 5 : 23 ; the second-first Sabbath, 6:1; the 
details regarding the material support of Jesus and His apostles, 8 : 1-3 ; compare 
also 9 : 51, 13 : 22, 17 : 11, 21 : 37, 38, etc.). The narrative of the Acts is every- 
where strewn with similar remarks (on Bethany, 1 : 12 ; expulsion of the Jews by 
Claudius, 18 : 2 ; Gallio, 5 : 12 ; the money value of the books burned, 19 : 19 ; the 
details of the disturbance at Ephesus, chap. 19 ; the fifty days between Passover and 
Pentecost, of which the narrative of the journey enables us to give an exact account, 
20 : 6 — 21 : 16 ; the number of soldiers, cavalry and infantry, forming the escort, 
23 : 23 ; the circumstantial account of the shipwreck, 27 ; the nationality and figure- 
head of the vessel which carries Paul to Rome, 28 : 11). The historical purpose of 
the narrative appears from the programme marked out in the prologue : to relate all 
things, from the very first, in order, exactly (1 : 3). 

Yet it is certain, on the other hand, that no more than the other evangelists does 
the author relate history merely as history — that is to say, to interest the reader and 
satisfy his curiosity. He evidently proposes to himself a more exalted aim. The 



< OMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 539 

tone of his narrative proves this, and he tells us so himself. He has before his eyes 
a reader who is already abreast of the essential points of the gospel verity, and whom 
he wishes to furnish with the means of confirming the reality of the object of his 
faith (n> aefaAeiav). It is with this view that he presents him with a full, exact, an^ 
consecutive description of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, " that he might 
[thus himself] verify the infallible certainty of those things wherein he has been in- 
structed." 

■ 

In what did those instructions received by Theophilus consist ? According to St. 
Paul (1 Cor. 15 : 3-5), the essential points of elementary instruction were these two : 
Christ dead for our sins, and risen tlie third day. In Rome 10 : 6-10 the same apos- 
tle thus defines the object of faith, and the contents of the Christian profession : 
Christ descended for us into the abyss, and ascended for us to heaven ; comp, also 
Eom. 4 : 23-25. Such is likewise the summary of Peter's preaching on the day of 
Pentecost. 

Nevertheless, at the house of Cornelius (Acts 10), Peter already feels the need of 
preparing for the proclamation of those decisive saving truths by a rapid sketch of 
the ministry of Jesus. At Antioch of Pisidia (Acts 13 : 23, 24), Paul goes back, like 
Peter, even to the ministry of John the Baptist. For there is in the mind of every 
man, face to face with an important historical event, the felt need not merely to ac- 
count for wlrRt it contains, but also for the way in which it has come about. And 
when the event has exercised, and continues ever to exercise, a deep influence on the 
lot of humanity, and on that of every individual, then the need of knowing its be- 
ginnings and development, its genesis, if 1 may so speak, takes forcible possession of 
every serious mind. And this desire is legitimate. The more value the event has, 
the more important is it for the conscience to defend itself from every illusion in 
regard to it. Such must have been the position of a large number of believing and 
cultured Greeks, of whom Theophilus was the representative. What mysteries must 
have appeared to such minds in those unheard of events which form the goal of gos- 
pel history : a man dying for the salvation of all other men ; a Jew raised to the con- 
dition of the Son of God,, and to power over all things ; and that especially when 
those events were presented apart from their connection with those which had pre- 
ceded and prepared for them, having all the appearance of abrupt manifestations 
from heaven ! To how many objections must such doctrine have given rise ? It is 
not without reason that St. Paul speaks of the cross as, to W> Grreeks foolishness. Was 
it not important to supply a point of support for such instructions, and in order to do 
that, to settle them on the solid basis of facts ? To relate in detail the beginning and 
middle of this History, was not this to render the end of it more worthy of faith ? In 
dealing with such men as Theophilus, there was an urgent necessity for supplying 
history as the basis of their catechetical training. 

No one could understand better than St. Paul the need for such a work, and we 
should not be surprised though it were to him that the initiative was due. It is true 
there existed already a considerable number of accounts of the ministry of Jesus ; 
but according to 1 : 3 (explained in contrast with vers. 1, 2), those works were only 
collections of anecdotes put together without connection and without criticism. Such 
compilations could not suffice to meet the want in question ; there was needed a his- 
tory properly so called, such as that which Luke announces in his programme. And 
if Paul among the helpers who surrounded him, had an evangelist distinguished for 
his gifts and culture — and we know from 2 Cor. 8 : 18, 19, that there was really one 



540 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

of this description — how could he help casting his eyes on him, and encouraging him 
to undertake so excellent a work ? Such is the task which Luke has discharged. It 
is neither by adducing the prophecies, nor by the personal greatness of Jesus, nor by 
his declarations respecting His heavenly origin, that the author of the third Gospel 
has sought to establish or strengthen the faith of his readers. It is by the consecu- 
tive exposition of that unique history whose final events have become the holy ob- 
ject of faith. The beginning explains the middle, and the middle the end ; and from 
this illuminated close the light is reflected back on the events which have led to it. 
It is a well- compacted whole, in which the parts mutually support one another. 
Luke's Gospel is the only one which in this view presents us with the Gospel history. 
It is very truly, as it has been called, the Gospel of the development (M. Felix Bovet). 
The heavenly exaltation of Jesus was, if one may so speak, the first stage in the 
march of Christian work. There was a second more advanced ; the state of things 
which this work had reached at the time when the author wrote. The name of Christ 
preached throughout all the world, the Church founded in all the cities of the em- 
pire ; such was the astounding spectacle which this great epoch presented. This re- 
sult was not, like the life of Jesus, an object of faith to the Gentiles ; it was a fact of 
felt experience. It required to be, not demonstrated, but explained, and in some re- 
spects justified. How had the Church been founded, and how had it grown so 
rapidly ? How had it become open to the Gentiles ? How were the people of Israel, 
from the midst of whom it had gone forth, themselves excluded from it ? How rec- 
oncile with this unexpected event God's faithfulness to His promises? Could the 
work of Christianity really be under those strange conditions a divine work ? All 
these were questions which might justly be raised in the minds of believers from 
among the Gentiles, as is proved by the passage 9-11 of the Epistle to the Romans, 
where Paul studies this very problem with a view to the wants of ancient Gentiles 
(11 : 13). Only, while Paul treats it from the standpoint of Christian speculation, 
and answers it by a Theodicee, the book of Acts labors to solve it historically. The 
first part of this book exhibits the Church being bom by the power of the Spirit of 
the glorified Christ, but coming into collision at its first step with official Judaism. 
The second part exhibits God preparing for the new progress which this work was to 
make through the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles, and Israel at the same time 
shedding the blood of Stephen, and the King of Israel slaying or disposed to slay the 
two chief apostles — in a word, the rebellion of Israel in the Holy Land. The last 
part, finally, represents the divine work embracing the Gentile world, and the ministry 
of Paul crowned with a success and with wonders equal at least to those which had 
signalized the ministry of Peter — most certainly this parallelism, as Schneckenburger 
has observed, is before the mind of the author, while Judaism continues its opposition 
in every city of the pagan world where Paul preaches, and at length consummates 
that opposition in the very heart of the empire, in the capital of the world, by the 
conduct of the rulers of the Roman synagogue. Such is the end of the book. Is not 
the intention of such a writing clear ? The narrative is a justification. Bat this 
justification is not, as has been unworthily thought, that of a man, St. Paul. The aim 
of the Acts is more exalted. Bjr its simple and consecutive statement of events, this 
book purports to give the explanation and justification of the way in which that great 
religious revolution was carried through, which transferred the kingdom of God from 
the Jews to the Gentiles ; it is the apology of the divine work, that of God Himself. 
God had left the Gentiles only for a time, the times of ignorance ; He had tempo- 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 541 

rarily let tliem walk in ilieir own ways (Acts 17 : 30 ; 14 : 16). At the end of this time, 
Israel, first saved, was to become the instrument of universal salvation, the apostle of 
Christ to all nations. But this glorious calling which the apostles so often held out to 
it was obstinately rejected, and the kingdom of God, instead of being established by 
it, was forced to pass aside from it. It was therefore not God who broke with His 
people ; it was the people who broke with their God. Such is the fact which the 
book of Acts demonstrates historically. It is thus, in a way, the counterpart of Gene- 
sis. The latter relates how the transition took place from primitive universalism to 
theocratic particularism, through God's covenant with Abraham. The Acts relate 
how God returned from this temporary particularism to the conclusive universalism, 
which was ever His real thought. But while simply describing the fact, the Acts ex- 
plain and justify the abnormal and unforeseen form in which it came about. 

The end common to Luke's two writings is therefore to strengthen faith, by ex- 
hibiting the principle and phases of that renewal which his eye had just witnessed. 
Two great results had been successively effected before the eyes of his contempora- 
ries. In the person of Jesus, the world had received a Saviour and Master ; this Sav- 
iour and Master had established His kingdom over humanity. The Gospel sets forth 
the first of those events ; the Acts the second. The Gospel has for its subject the 
invisible revolution, the substitution in the person of Jesus Himself of the dispensa- 
tion of the Spirit for the reign of the letter, the transforming of the relations of God 
to man, salvation, the principle of that historical revolution which was to follow. 
The Acts narrate the external revolution, the preaching of salvation with its conse- 
quences, the acceptance of the Gentiles, and their substitution in the place of Israel. 
Salvation and the Church, such are the two works of God on which the author meant 
to shed the light of the divine mind. The Ascension linked them together. The goal 
of the one, it was the foundation of the other. Hence the narrative of the Ascension 
becomes the bond of the two writings. The aim of the work, thus understood, ex- 
plains its beginning (the announcement of the forerunner's birth), its middle (the As- 
cension), and its end (Paul and the synagogue at Rome). 

II. — The Time of Composition. 

The very various opinions regarding the date of our Gospel (Introd. § 3) may be 
arranged in three groups. The first class fix it before the destruction of Jerusalem, 
between 60 and 70 ; the second, between the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of 
the first century (Holtzmann, from 70 to 80 ; Keim, about 90) ; the third, Baur and 
his school, in the first part of the second century (Volkmar, about 100 ; Hilgenfeld, 
Zeller, from 100 to 110 ; Baur, after 130). The traditions which we have quoted (§ 3) 
and the facts which we have enumerated (§ 1) seem to us at once to set aside the dates 
of the third group, and to be unfavorable to the second. Tradition has preserved to us 
only one precise date, that given by Clement of Alexandria, when he places the com- 
position of Luke before that of Mark, and fixes the latter at the period of Peter's so- 
journ at Rome — that is to say, in 64 (According to Wieseler). or between 64 and 67 
(according to others). Following this view, our Gospel must have been composed be- 
tween 60 and 67. The opinion of Irenaeus is not, as is often said, opposed to this 
(§ 3). Let us examine the objections raised by criticism to this traditional date, 
which would place the composition of our Gospel antecedently to the destruction of 
Jerusalem. 



542 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

1. The great number of gospel narratives already published before our Gospel, 
according to the prologue, presupposes a somewhat advanced period of the apostolic 
age.* But why might not numerous attempts at compiling traditions relative to the 
history of Jesus have been made during the first thirty years which followed events 
so great? " Though the art of writing had not yet existed, it would have been in- 
vented for such a subject," says Lange. When, especially, the generation of the 
immediate "witnesses of the life of our Saviour began to be cleared away by death, 
and when the apostles, His official witnesses, left Palestine to go and preach to other 
nations, was it not inevitable that the gospel literature should appear to fill up this 
double void ? Now it was about the year 60, at the latest, that those circumstances 
emerged. 

2. The work of Luke betrays a certain amount ofscriticism, in regard to its sources, 
which leads to a date posterior to the destruction of Jerusalem. But from the time 
when the author had before him a certain number of works ou the subject, it is evi- 
dent that he could not compose his narrative without estimating those sources 
critically ; that might be done at any period. All that was needed for it was leisure. 

3. The influence of legend (Overbeck) is alleged in the writings of Luke, and a 
Paulinism already in a state of decadence (Reuss, so far as the Acts is concerned). 
But has the third Gospel presented to us a single description resembling that of the 
fire lighted in the Jordan at the time of the baptism, which Justin relates ; or a single 
word which has anj r resemblance to the account of the marvellous vines of the mil- 
lennial kingdom, in Papias ; or a single scene amplified like that which is drawn by 
the Gospel of the Hebrews of the interview between Jesus and the rich young man 
(see on the passage) ? Such are the traces of the influence of myth. Luke is entirely 
free from it. As to the weakening of the Pauline idea, we shall not be able to treat 
it thoroughly till chap. 4. We shall only say here, that so far from its being the fact 
that Luke gives us a Paulinism in a state of decline, it is Paul himself who, in the 
Acts, following the example of Jesus in the Gospel, agrees to realize Christian spirit- 
uality only in the restricted measure in which it is practicable. Fidelity to principle 
does not prevent men of God from exercising that prudence and charity which in prac- 
tice can take account of a given situation. 

4. The siege of Jerusalem is described in the prophecy of Jesus in so precise and 
detailed a form (19 : 48, 44 ; 21 : 20-24), in comparison with the compilations of Mat- 
thew and Mark, that it is impossible to assert that Luke's account is not subsequent 
to the event. Jesus predicted the destruction of Jerusalem, that is certain. The 
witnesses who accused Him of this before the Sanhedrim did not invent what was ab- 
solutely false, and Stephen rested his statement on some such prophecy (Acts 6 : 14). 
Now if Jesus predicted this catastrophe as a prophet, there is no reason why He 
should not have prophetically announced some details of it. But if He predicted it 
simply through the force of His political insight, He could not but be aware also that 
this destruction implied a siege, and that the siege could not take place without the 
means in use at the time (investment, trenches, etc.), and would be followed by all the 
well-known terrible consequences. Now nothing in the details given passes beyond 
the measure of those general indications. 

5. The final advent of our Lord, it is further said, stands in Mark and Matthew in 

* Keiin : " Eike reicheEvangelien-Literatur zeigtden vorgeriickten Bliithbestand 
des Christenthums. " 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 643 

immediate connection with the destruction of Jerusalem, while in Luke it is widely 
separated from it by the interval of the times of the Q entiles (21 : 24). In other pas- 
sages, besides, the idea of the proximity of the Parousia is designedly effaced ; so 
9 : 27, where Luke makes Jesus say that some of the disciples present shall see, not 
11 the Son of man coming in His kingdom" (Matthew), but simply tlie kingdom of God. 
This all proves that, at the period when Luke was writing, experience had already 
led the Church to give up the idea that the return of Christ would immediately follow 
j (evQiuS in Matthew) the destruction of Jerusalem. We hold that the relation of im- 
' mediate succession between the two events laid down by Matthew proves that his 
Gospel was composed before the destruction of Jerusalem ; but we cannot admit, 
what is held by the entire body almost of modern critics, that the interval supposed 
by Luke between those two events proves the date of his Gospel to be after that 
catastrophe. We have already treated several points bearing on this question in our 
exegesis (pp. 445, 446). The decisive question, here is how Jesus Christ Himself 
spoke on the subject. We think we have given indubitable evidence, from a very 
large number of His sayings, that in His view His advent was to be separated by a 
considerable period, not only from the time that He was speaking, but from the de- 
struction of Jerusalem, which, according to Him, was to happen during the lifetime 
of the contemporary generation. The bridegroom who delays his coming ; the por- 
ter who has to watch late or till midnight, or till cock-crow, or even till morning, 
waiting for his master ; the parable of the leaven, which exhibits the gospel slowly 
and by a process wholly from within transforming the relations of human life, that 
gospel which must be preached before His return throughout the whole world, while 
the apostles shall not even have had time to announce it to all the cities of Israel be- 
fore the judgment of the nation, etc. etc. — all proves to us that Jesus Himself never 
confounded in one and the same catastrophe the destruction of Jerusalem and the end 
of the present dispensation. Hence it follows, that if Jesus expressed His view on 
this subject, He must have spoken as Luke makes Him speak, and not as Matthew 
makes Him speak ; that consequently He must really have delivered two distinct dis- 
courses on those two subjects so entirely different in His eyes, and not one merely in 
which He blended the two events in a single description (Matt. 24). Now this is pre- 
cisely what Luke says (see chap. 17, on the return of Christ, and chap. 21, on the de- 
struction of Jerusalem). If it is so, with what right can it be alleged that Luke could 
not recover the historical truth on this point as he has succeeded in doing on so many 
others, and that his essentially more accurate account of the sayings of Jesus is pro- 
duced only by a deliberate alteration of the documents which he had before him ? 
What ! Luke returned by the path of error or falsehood to historical truth ! Really 
criticism here exacts more from sound sense than it can bear. Besides, it is psycho- 
logically impossible that Luke should have indulged in manipulating at pleasure the 
sayings of that Being on whom his faith was fixed, whom he regarded as the Son of 
God. Again, in this respect criticism ascribes a procedure to him which sound 
sense rejects. The sayings of our Lord may have been involuntarily modified by tra- 
dition, and have come to the evangelists in different and more or less altered forms ; 
but we cannot allow that they invented or changed them deliberately. In what re- 
sults are we landed if we take the opposite view ? It is asserted that some unknown 
poet put into the mouth of Jesus, about 68, the eschatological discourse, Matt. 24 ; 
then, ten or twenty years after the destruction of Jerusalem, Luke not less knowingly 
and deliberately transformed this discourse to meet the exigencies of the case ! But 



544 COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 

we ask : if such were really the origin of our Lord's discourses, would they be what 
they are ? Would their general harmony, and the points so often observed at which 
they lit into one another, be what they are, especially in our synoptics ? 

In opposition to those reasons, which appear to us to be of little weight, the follow- 
ing are the proofs which the book itself furnishes, to the fact of its being composed 
before the destruction of Jerusalem : 1. The aim which, as we have seen, explains 
the Gospel and the Acts, coincides thoroughly with that of the great epistles of St. 
Paul, especially of the Epistle to the Romans ; besides, the correspondences in detail 
between the third Gospel and that letter are so many and striking, that it is almost 
impossible to deny that the two writings proceeded from the same surroundings and at 
the same period. For they are evidently intended to meet the same practical wants.* 
The main fact here is, that Luke resolves historically precisely the same problem of 
the rejection of Israel and the calling of the Gentiles which Paul treats speculatively 
in the important passage, Rom. 9-11. 

2. The purity of the tradition, the freshness and simplicity of the narratives, and 
especially the appropriateness which Luke is able to restore to the sayings of Jesus, 
and which alone makes their full charm felt, do not admit of the view that this book 
was written at a considerable distance from the events, and that it was wholly outside 
the circle of the first witnesses. The destruction of Jerusalem had not yet burst over 
the Holy Land and scattered that Primitive Christian Society, when such information 
was collected as that to which we owe records so vivid and pure. 

3. The book of Acts, certainly written after the Gospel, does not seem to have 
been composed after the destruction of Jerusalem. True, it has been alleged that 
8 : 26 proves the contrary, but without the least foundation, as Overbeck acknowl- 
edges. The words: " Now it is desert," in this passage, refer not to the town of 
Gaza, but to the route pointed out by the angel, either to distinguish it from another 
more frequented way (Overbeck), or, as appears to us more natural, to explain the 
scene which is about to follow. How would it be possible for this writing, at least 
in its last lines, not to contain the least allusion to this catastrophe, nor even a word 

* In the first two chapters of Luke, Jesus is described as the son of David by 
His descent from Mary, and as the Son of God by His supernatural birth ; St. Paul 
begins the Epistle to the Romans with the words : " Made of the seed of David 
according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God in virtue of the spirit of 
holiness." Luke's two writings, in their unity, demonstrate Israel's right of priority 
in regard to the kingdom of God ; what else is this than the privilege of the npurov, 
first, expressly attributed to the Jews by St. Paul, Rom. 1 : 16 ? Jesus, in Luke, is 
circumcised on the eighth day, and presented in the temple on the foriieth — two cer- 
emonies which subject Him during His earthly life to the law ; Paul, as if he were 
alluding to those facts related only by Luke, calls Jesus ' ' a minister of the circum- 
cision" (Rom. 15 : 8), and speaks of Him, Gal. 4:4, " made of a woman, made under 
the law." Luke, in the Acts, declares the universality of the divine revelation which 
preceded that of the Gospel : " God left not Himself without witness among the Gen- 
tiles ;" Paul, Rom. 1 : 19, 20, likewise declares the revelation of the invisible God 
made to the Gentiles in the works of creation. Luke points to the Good Samaritan 
doing instinctively what neither the priest nor the Levite, though holders of the law, 
did ; Paul, Rom. 2 : 14-15, 26-27, speaks of the Gentiles who do by nature the things 
contained in the law, and who thereby shall condemn the Jew, who hears, but at the 
same time breaks that law. Luke speaks of the times of ignorance, during which 
God suffered the nations to walk in their own ways ; Paul, of the forbearance which 
God showed in regard to past sins, during the time of His long-suffering {Rom, 3 ; 25). 
It would be tedious to prolong this parallel. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 545 

touching the death of St. Paul, which must have preceded it by a few years? We 
have already discussed this question (Introd. p. 8 et seq.). We shall sum up by say- 
ing that if, on the one hand, the mention of the term of two years, in the last verses 
of the Acts, clearly assumes that a new phase in Paul's life had begun after his cap- 
tivity, on the other hand the complete silence of the author as to the end of the 
apostle's career proves that this phase had not yet terminated. The Acts must there- 
fore have been written in the interval between the end of Paul's first captivity at 
Home (in the spring of the year 64) and his martyrdom (about 67).* The Gospel must 
have been composed a short time before. 

Again, it has been alleged that a considerable interval must have elapsed between 
the composition of those two writings ; because the tradition followed by Luke in the 
Acts, in regard to the ascension, differs from that which dictated the account of the 
event in the Gospel, and consequently supposes new information. We have proved 
in our exegesis that this hypothesis is erroneous. The account in the Gospel is given 
summarily, with the view of presenting in the subsequent work a more complete 
view of the event. 

4. We have explained in the Introduction, the influence which Luke exercised on 
the unauthentic \ conclusion of Mark, by supposing that the first of those works ap- 
peared about the time when the composition of the second must have been interrupted 
(at the passage, Mark 16 : 8). We shall here take a step further. If it is true, as 
seems to be the consequence of the exegesis, that Luke was not acquainted either with 
the Gospel of Matthew or Mark, it follows that he wrote shortly after those two Gos- 
pels had appeared ; otherwise he would not have failed to know works of such im- 
portance on the subject which he was treating. If therefore our exegetical result is 
established, we must conclude that the Gospel of Luke was composed almost simul- 
taneously with the other'two synoptics. We shall examine the premises of this con- 
clusion more closely in chap. 3. Now, if it follows from the confounding of the two 
discourses on the destruction of Jerusalem and on the end of the world, in Matthew 
and Mark, that those writings are anterior to the first of those events, supposing that 
Luke did not know either the one or the other of them, he must share in this priority. 

It seems to us on all these accounts that the composition of the Gospel and of the 
Acts must be placed between the years 64 and 67, as was indicated by tradition. 

III.— The Antjm\ 

Here we start from a fact universally admitted, namely, the identity of the author 
of the Gospel and of the Acts. This is oue of the few points oh which criticism is 
unanimous. Holtzmann says (p. 374) : " It must now be admitted as indisputable, 
that the author of the third Gospel is one and the same person with the author of the 
Acts." Indeed, the identity of the style, the correspondence of the plan, and the 
continuity of the narrative, do not admit of the least doubt in this respect, as Zeller 
also proves. 

Who is this author ? Tradition answers : Luke, Paul's fellow -laborer. If it goes 

* The words of Paul, Acts 20 : 25, do not prove that the Acts were written after 
Paul's death, as has been alleged. For Luke does not make Paul, any more than 
Jesus, speak according to his own fancy. 

f It is to be borne in mind that there is wide difference of view, according to the 
estimate of authorities, regarding this portion. It may prove clearly authentic, — J. II. 



546 COMMENTARY Ols ST. LUKE. 

so far as to ascribe to Paul himself a share in the composition, this is a later ainpii- 
fication which, as we have seen (Introd. p. 17), is foreign to the primitive statement. 
No other objections are raised against the truth of this traditional assertion, than 
the arguments alleged to prove the composition of our two writings in the second 
century, a time at which there could no longer be a fellow-laborer of St. Paul. Those 
arguments having been refuted, it only remains to bring forward from those two 
writings the positive reasons to be alleged in support of the indication furnished by 
tradition : 

1. It appears from the prologue that the author was not one of the apostles, but 
one of their immediate disciples, " a Christian of the second apostolic generation" 
(Renan). This is implied in the words : "As they delivered them unto us, which 
from the beginning were eye-witnesses of these things." 

2. This disciple was a Christian from among the Gentiles ; for, as Holtzmann 
observes, it is not probable that a Jewish Christian would have spoken of the elders 
of the Jews (7 :3), of a city of the Jews (23 : 51), etc., etc.) The position of John, in 
whom we find similar expressions, was entirely different. In his case this form of 
expression is explained by reasons of a peculiar nature.) 

3. This Greek Christian was a believer formed in the school of Paul. This is 
proved by that breath of broad universalism which inspires his two writings, and 
more particularly by the correspondence as to the institution of the Holy Supper in 
his account and Paul's. 

4. He must even have been one of the apostle's fellow -laborers in the work of 
evangelization, at least if he is speaking of himself in the passages where the first 
person plural occurs in the book of Acts. And this explanation seems to be the only 
admissible one. If it is well founded, it further follows that the author cannot be 
one of the fellow laborers of Paul who are designated by name in the Acts, for he 
never speaks of himself except anonymously. 

5. This apostolic helper must have been a man of letters. This is proved by the 
prologue prefixed to his work, the classic style of this piece, as well as of those pas- 
sages of the Acts which he composed independently of any document (the last parts 
of the book) ; finally, by the refined and delicate complexion of mind and the histori- 
cal talent which appear in his two writings. 

Now all those features belong signally to Luke. We have seen (Introd. p. 11) : 
1. Paul ranks Luke among the Christians of Greek origin. 2. He assigns him 
a distinguished place within the circle of his disciples and fellow-laborers. 3. The 
title physician which he gives him leads us. to ascribe to him a scientific and literary 
culture probably superior to that of the other apostolic helpers. 

Not only do the criteria indicated all apply to Luke, but they do not apply well to 
any other. Barnabas was of Jewish origin, for he was a Levite ; Silas also, for he 
belonged to the Primitive Church at Jerusalem. Timothy was a young Lycaonian, 
probably without culture, which explains the timid shrinking which seems to have 
characterized him as an evangelist (1 Cor. 16 : 10, 11 ; 2 Tim. 1 : 6-8). Besides, all 
these are designated by name in the Acts. Luke only (with the exception of Titus) 
never appears by name. We see that the evidences borrowed from Luke's writings 
harmonize with those furnished by the Epistles of Paul, and that both coincide with 
the traditional statement. Now, as it is not likely that the Primitive Church gave 
itself to the critical investigation which we have been making, this agreement be- 
tween the critical result and the historical testimony raises the fact of the authorship 
of St. Luke to the highest degree of scientific certainty. 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 547 

Moreover, all the authors whose judgment has not been perverted by the pre- 
judices of the Tubingen criticism are at one respecting the person of the author. " It 
is impossible," says Holtzmann, " to understand why Luke should not be the author 
of this Gospel." " The author of this Gospel," says M. Renan (" Vie de Jesus," p. 
16), " is certainly the same as the author of the Acts of the Apostles. Now the 
author of the Acts is a companion of St. Paul, a title which perfectly applies to 
Luke." Keim thus expresses himself (p. 81) : " There is no room to doubt that this 
writing was composed by the companion of Paul. At least it is incomprehensible 
how by pure conjecture a man should have been definitely singled out whose name 
so rarely appears in the epistles of the apostle." 

IV. — The Place of Composition. 

Some very uncertain traditions place the composition (as we have seen, Introd. 
§ 3) at Alexandria (many mss. Mnn.), in Greece (Beotia and Achaia, Jerome), or at 
Rome. A modern critic, Kostlin, has proposed Asia Minor. 

We find little ground in the two writings for deciding between those different possi- 
bilities. The explanations appended to certain geographical names by no means prove, 
as some seem to think, that the author did not write in the country to which those 
localities belonged ; they only prove that he did not suppose those localities known to 
Theophilus or to his readers in general. Thus it cannot be concluded, as has been 
attempted from the explanation respecting the city of Philippi (Acts 16 : 12), that he 
did not write in Macedonia ; nor from those about Athens (17 : 21), that he did not 
write in Attica ; nor from those about the Fair Havens and Phenice (27 : 8-12), that 
he did not write in Crete ; and as little from explanations about localities in Palestine 
(Luke 1 : 26, 4 : 31, Nazareth, Capernaum, cities of Galilee ; 8 : 26, the country of 
the Gadarenes, opposite Galilee ; 23 : 51, Arlmathea, a city of the Jews ; 24 : 13, 
Emmaus. 60 furlongs from Jerusalem ; Acts 1 : 12, the Mount of Olives, near Jeru- 
salem), that he did not write in Palestine. What those passages prove is 
that he did not write for the Christians of Palestine or Macedonia, or Attica 
or Crete, at least exclusively. Because of the absence of similar explanations regard- 
ing certain Sicilian and Italian localities (Acts 28 : 12, Syracuse ; ver. 13, Rhegium, 
Puteoli ; ver. 15, Appii Forum and the Three Taverns), it does not necessarily follow 
that he wrote in Sicily, in Italy, or in Rome, but only that he knew those localities 
to be familiar to his readers. It must be confessed, however, that from the country 
of his readers we may draw an inference in regard to the place of composition ; for 
it is natural to suppose that an author writes for the public with which he finds him- 
self immediately surrounded. 

The evidences which Zeller thinks he has discovered in favor of Rome as the place 
of composition either depend on his explanation of the aim of Luke's writings, which 
has been proved false, or are unsupported, for example, when he alleges the interest 
which the author shows for this city by making the foundation of the Roman church 
by Paul the culminating point of his narrative. Now the fact is, as we have proved, 
that this last chapter of the Acts has an altogether different bearing. 

The reasons alleged by Kostlin and Overbeck in favor of Ephesus are not more 
conclusive. 1. It is asserted that Marcion, on his way from Asia Minor to Rome, 
brought thence Luke's Gospel. But by that time this writing was spread — this is 
proved by facts (Introd. § 1), as well as the other two synoptics— throughout all the 
churches. Marcion did not introduce it into western Christendom ; he merely chose 
it among the received Gospels as the one which he could the most easily adapt to his 



548 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

system. 2. The author of the Acts loves to describe the persons who afterward played 
a part in Asia Minor. But John, the chief personage of the church of Asia at the 
end of the first century, is wholly eclipsed in the Acts by Peter and Paul. 3. The 
Acts relate with predilection Paul's sojourn at Ephesus. True, but in such a way as 
to place in relief Peter's ministry at Jerusalem. Paul's sojourn at Ephesus was the 
culminating point of his apostolate, as the times which followed Pentecost were the 
apogee of Peter's. 

Evidences so arbitrary cannot lay a foundation for any solid result. Once assured 
of the author's person, we should rather start from his history. Luke was at Rome 
with St. Paul from the spring of the year 62 (Acts 28) ; he was still there when the 
epistles were sent to the Colossians and Philemon. But when the apostle wrote to 
the Philippians, about the end of 63 or beginning of 64, he had already left Rome, for 
Paul sends no greeting from him to this church, so well known to Luke. When, 
therefore, the two years' captivity of the apostle spoken of in the Acts came to a 
close, and consequently that captivity itself, he was no longer with the apostle. 
Some years later, when Paul, imprisoned at Rome for the second time, sent from that 
city the Second Epistle to Timothy, Luke was again with him. Where did he reside 
in the interval ? Probably in Greece, among those churches of Macedonia and 
Achaia, in whose service he had labored along with Paul, and in Achaia rather than 
Macedonia, seeing Paul does not salute him in the Epistle to the Philippians. Might 
it not then be at this period, and in this latter country, " in the countries of Achaia 
and Beotia, ' ' as Jerome says, that he composed his Gospel ? * As to the Acts, he 
must have composed it somewhat later, probably at Rome beside Paul, shortly before 
his martyrdom in 67. The parchments which Paul asked Timothy to bring him 
from Asia, at the time when only Luke was with him, were perhaps documents 
which were to be used in this work ; for example, the summaries of the admirable 
discourses at Antioch, Athens, and Miletus, which are like jewels set in the narrative 
of the Acts. The work was published when the head of the apostle fell uuder the 
sword. Hence the absence of all allusion to that event. The composition of the 
Acts, both in respect of place and date, would be nearly connected with that of the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, with which Luke's writings have several other features of 
agreement which are highly remarkable, f 

* We went further in the development of this hypothesis in our first edition. We 
supposed Corinth, and even the house of Gaius, Paul's host in that city (Rom. 
16 : 23), as the place of composition. M. G. Meyer has rightly observed in his review, 
that in this case there was no reason to hinder Luke from taking textually f rorn First 
Corinthians the account of the institution of the Holy Supper. We therefore with- 
draw those hypothetical details. 

f As to the situation, the author of this epistle (we should say Luke, if the reasons 
in favor of Barnabas or Silas did not seem to us to preponderate) is about to set out 
from Italy with Timothy, just delivered from prison (after the martyrdom of Paul). 
For internal analogies compare the following passages : 

Luke 1:2, Heb. 2 : 3. 

"2:16, . . . . . " 1:6, 8, 10. 

"2:7, . . . . "2:14. 

" 2:40, 52, . . . . "2: 17, etc. 

In Luke, the transformation of the In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the 

Mosaic system into spiritual obedience. transformation of the Levitical cultus 

into a spiritual cultus. 
In both, the idea of the human development of Jesus forming the foundation of 
the Christology. 



COMMENTARY 02s ST. LUKE. 549 

i 

CHAPTER III. 

THE SOURCES OF LUKE, AND THE RELATION OF THE SYNOPTICS TO ONE ANOTHER. 

We have reached the most arduous, but Dot the least important part of our task. 
This domain is that of hypothesis ; but as it is from the most remote and inaccessible 
mountain regions that the rivers which fertilize and the torrents which devastate 
come down, so it is from the obscure regions into which we are about to enter that 
we get those widelv various and yet influential criticisms on the value of the Gospel 
history, which find their way even to the people. We shall first take up what con- 
cerns the third Gospel in particular ; then we shall extend our study to the other two 
synoptics. For those three writings are of a piece, and every definitive judgment on 
the one involves a result gained in regard to the other two. 

I. — TJie Sources of Luke. 

Two questions present themselves : 
I. Is Luke dependent either on Matthew or Mark ? 
II. And if not, what were the true sources of this work ? 

I. 

We have throughout the whole of our commentary exhibited, in the narrative and 
style, those characteristics which seem to us to demonstrate Luke's entire indepen- 
dence in respect of Mark and Matthew. It only remains to recapitulate those proofs, 
while we apply them to refute the contrary hypotheses. 

A. As to Luke's independence in relation to Matthew, we shall not rest our conclu- 
sion on the numerous narratives which the first has more than the second. This fact 
would prove only one thing : that if Matthew served as a source to Luke, he was not 
the only one, at least unless we hold, with Baur, that Luke invented whatever he 
contains more than Matthew — an assertion which seems to us to be alread} r sufficiently 
refuted. Neither shall we allege the many narratives of Matthew which are wanting 
in Luke ; for we are aware of the reasons which might lead the follower to omit cer- 
tain facts related by his predecessor. But we appeal to the following facts : 

1. Luke's plan is entirely independent of that of Matthew ; for it appears to us 
superfluous, after the investigations which we have just carried through, again to re- 
fute the opinion of Keim, according to which Luke's plan is no other than that of 
Matthew spoiled. What appears to us above all inconceivable, is that in the account 
of the journey (from 9 : 51) Luke should not even have mentioned Perea, which Mat- 
thew expressly makes the theatre of the corresponding journey (19 : 1). Especially 
at the point where Luke's narrative rejoins Matthew's (18 : 15, comp. with Matt. 
19 : 13), one would expect such an indication without fail. 

2. The series of narrations in Luke is wholly independent of that in Matthew. 
Two or three analogous groups like those of the baptism and temptation, of the two 
Sabbatic scenes (Luke 6 : 1 et seq. and parall.) of the aspirants to the kingdom of God 
(Luke 9 : 57 et seq. and parall.). and of the various scenes belonging to the Gadara ex- 
cursion (Luke 8 : 22-56), etc., are easily explained by the moral or chronological con- 
nection of the events, in virtue of which they formed one whole in tradition. Be- 



550 COMMENT AKY OK ST. LUKE. 

sides, these are not wanting features to prove, even in this respect, the independence 
of the two narratives. For example, the insertion of the accounts of the healing of 
the paralytic and of the calling of Matthew in Matthew's narrative of the Gadara ex- 
cursion, and Luke's adding of a third aspirant unknown to Matthew. 

3. In the narrative parts common to both, the independence of Luke in the 
details of the accounts is obvious at every word. The author who wrote Luke 1 : 2 
could not have had before him Matt. 1 : 2, unless he had the formal intention of con- 
tradicting him. So Keim supposes that Luke had a Matthew before him which did 
not yet contain the accounts of the infancy ! In the narrative of the temptation, 
would Luke take the liberty of inverting the order of the temptations, and of omitting 
the appearance of the angels ? Would he suppose the rite of the confession of sins 
in his description of John's baptism ? In his account of the baptism would he mod- 
ify the terms of the divine utterance ? So in that of the transfiguration (see the exe- 
gesis). In the narrative of the calling of Matthew himself, would he change that 
apostle into an unknown person, named Levi ? Would he expressly refer to another 
Sabbath the second Sabbatic scene (6 : 6) which Matthew places on the same day as 
the first (12 : 9) ? Would he mention a single demoniac at Gadara, a single blind man 
at Jericho, in cases where Matthew mentions two ? When borrowing the conversa- 
tion at Cesarea Philippi from Matthew, WQuld he omit to indicate the locality where 
it took place ? Or would he introduce into the text of his predecessor such puerile 
changes as the substitution of eight days for six, in the narrative of the transfigura- 
tion, etc., etc. ? We shall be told he used another source in those cases in which he 
had more confidence. This supposition, which we shall examine more closely, 
would solve some of those enigmas indifferently, but not all. In particular, the omis- 
sions of details remain unexplained. 

4. In reporting the sayings of Jesus, not to speak here of the dislocation of the 
great discourses, how could Luke alter so seriously the terms of such a document as 
the Lord's Prayer, or of a declaration so grave as that regarding the blasphemy 
against the Spirit, etc., etc.; and then, on the other hand, indulge in such petty 
changes as the transformation of the sheep fallen into the pit into an ox, or of the two 
sparrows which are sold for a farthing into five which are sold for two farthings ? 
How could he introduce into the middle of the Sermon on the Mount two sayings 
which seem to break its connection (6 : 39, 40), and which must be taken from two 
discourses, held in entirely different situations, according to Matt. (15 : 14, 10 : 25), 
where, besides, they have an altogether different application ? Have we here again 
the fact of another document ? But, in conclusion, to what purpose does he use 
Matthew ? And would this preference for the other source go so far as to lead him 
to omit such sayings as these : " Come unto me . . ." which Matthew presented 
to him ? For who could take in earnest the attempt to answer this proposed by Holtz- 
mann (see pp. 310, 311) ? 

5. The chief reason for which it is thought necessary to regard Matthew as one of 
Luke's sources, is the identical expressions and parts of phrases which occur both in 
the discourses and in the parallel narratives. But whence comes it that this resem- 
blance is, as M. Nicolas says, intermittent, and that not only in the same narrative, 
but in the same paragraph and in the same phrase ? Did Luke slavishly copy Mat- 
thew for a quarter of a line, and then in the next quarter write independently of 
him ? But this is child's play, if the sense is the same ; it is still worse, if the change 
alters the sense. We know the answer which is again given here : he had not Mat- 



COMMENTARY 02ST ST. LUKE; 551 

thew only, but other documents as well before him ; he combines together those vari- 
ous texts. Behold our author, then, borrowing three words from one document, two 
from another, four from a third, and that in every phrase from beginning to end of 
his Gospel ? Who can admit the idea of such patchwork ? Need we here reproduce 
the well-known jest of Schleiermacher at Eichhorn's hypothesis (" Schr. d. Luk." p. 
G) ? Is it not enough to say, with Lange, " The process of death to explain the work 
of life?" No ; such mechanical inlaying could never have become that flowing, 
simple, and limpid narrative which we admire in our Gospel. Let the parable of the 
sower be reperused in a synopsis, comparing the two texts, and it will be felt that to 
maintain that the first of those texts is derived from the other, in whole and in part, 
is not only to insult the good faith, but the good sense, of the second writer. 

6. Weiss has pointed out that a number of Matthew's favorite expressions 
((3aai2,eia ruv ovfiavuv, evayye?uov ttjS fiaciAecaS, Trapovoia, avvreAeia tov aluvog, 
oehrjvtdfcaQai, ev ensivu ~<I> Kacpu, etc.) are completely foreign to Luke. If- he had 
copied Matthew's text, how could one or other of those terms have failed now and 
again to escape from his pen ? 

7. Luke's Gospel abounds in Aramaizing forms, not only in the passages peculiar 
to himself, but also in those to which Matthew has parallels. And, strange to say, 
those Aramaisms are wholly wanting in the text of the latter. We find, on the con- 
trary, a pure, native, vigorous Greek, v^o suppose, therefore, that Matthew was 
Luke's principal source, is to believe that the latter, himself a Greek, and writing for 
Greeks, had arbitrarily foisted his foreign Aramaic phrases into the style of his prede- 
cessor. Who can imagine such an anomaly : the Hebrew writer writing good Greek 
for Hebrews, and the Greek writer cramming his Greek text with Aramaisms for 
Greeks ! * 

B. Luke's independence in relation to Mark appears to us evident from the follow- 
ing facts : 

1. Luke's plan is certainly not borrowed from Mark, who has no other plan than 
the known contrast between the Galilean ministry and the sojourn at Jerusalem, and 
whose narrative is composed, besides, of detached scenes. That which Klostermann 
discovers appears to us to be due rather to the critic than to the evangelist. The unity 
of Mark's work lies elsewhere ; it is found in the person of Jesus Himself, whose 
greatness forms the common basis of all those varied scenes, and in the impression of 

* The phenomenon is found on the largest scale. Let the following parallels be 
compared : 

Luke. Matthew. 

5:1: eyevsro . . . nai avros tjv . . . ko.1 4 : 18 : nepLnaTtiv 6s elde. 

side. 
5 : 12 ; 5 : 17, 18 : ^ KtiUyev ... not 8 : 1 ; 9 : 1, 2 ; 12 : 9. 

avroS qv . . . nal rjcav . . . ; 6:1. 

8 : 22 : nai eyivero . . . teal avrfc ... 8 : 18 : iduv 6e eniAevoev> 

9 : 18, 28, 37, 57. 16 : 13 ; 17 : 1, 14; 8 : 19. 
11 : 14 ; 18 : 35 ; 19 : 29. 12 : 22 ; 20 : 20 ; 21 : 1. 
24 : 4, 15, 30, 51. 

20 : 11 : nai TrpooeQero Ttefiipai irepov 21 : 36 : iraAiv dittareiAev uX2,ov$. 

(ver. 12) ; comp. 3 : 20. 
20 : 21 : Acifijiaveiv Trpdaunov. 22 : 16 : fie npoaunov (3?j7teiv. 

Other Hebraistic forms in Luke: oafi(3aTov chvrspoTrpciTov, G : 1 : ueyaAvveiv perd 
1 : 58 ; the teal . . . ml . . . ; 24 : 23-35, etc. 



552 COMMENTARY OK ST. LtTKE. 

admiration which it inspires. Therein there is nothing resembling the progressive de- 
velopment which comes to light in Luke's work. 

2. No doubt as to the series of events, especially at the beginning, there is a 
greater agreement between Mark and Luke than between Luke and Matthew ; but 
not without transpositions much more difficult to explain, on the supposition that 
Mark was used by Luke, than is the analogy in some series, without any depend- 
ence on Luke's part. 

; 3. There is in Luke a more important omission than that of some particular ac- 
counts ; there is the omission of the whole cycle. Mark 6 : 45-8 : 26 (Matt. 14 : 22-16 : 12). 
How is such a suppression conceivable, if Luke, who nevertheless aimed at being- 
complete (ndaiv, 1 : 3), makes use of Mark ? It has been supposed that there was a 
gap in the copy of Mark which he possessed ; can this reply suffice ? 

4. The same difference, besides, meets us in regard to the special details of the 
narrative's, and in regard to the style of our Lord's discourses, as between Luke and 
Matthew. If Luke copies Mark, why does he put the healing of the blind man at 
Jericho at the departure of Jesus, while Mark puts it at His entrance ? Why does 
he omit the name of Bartimeus, and the picturesque details of Mark's description ? 
"What purpose could it serve to mutilate at will such dramatic accounts as that of the 
healing of the lunatic son ? By what caprice substitute for the words of Mark : 
" Save a staff only," these apparently contradictory ones : " Nothing, not even a 
staff ' ' ? And when Luke clearly places the expulsion of the buyers and sellers from 
the temple, on the morrow after Palm- day, why put it on that same day ? Does 
Luke make sport of history, and of the Master's words ? 

5. Of the very many Hebraisms which we have pointed out in Luke, only a very 
few are found in Mark. Once more, then, Luke made the medley ! He, the author 
of Greek origin, who could write classic Greek, overloading his style with Hebraisms 
which he does not find in his model ! 

6. Finally, we call attention to the mixture of slavish dependence and affected 
originality which would characterize the text of Luke, if he really reproduced the 
text of Mark. Is not Gieseler right in saying : ' ' And despite such affectation, this 
work bears a seal of simplicity and of the absence of pretence, which strikes every 
reader !" Another source has been spoken of as used besides Mark. So we are 
brought back to that manufacturing of phrases of which we have already spoken. 
The supposition has been given forth that Luke used the previous writing entirely 
from memory. But how could this memory be at once so tenacious as to reproduce 
the minutest expressions of the original text ; and, on the other hand, so treacherous 
as sometimes to alter the facts so seriously ? Here there would be an intermitting of 
memory more difficult still to explain than the iutermittence of the style to support 
which this hypothesis is resorted to. 

We conclude that neither Matthew nor Mark, in their present form at least, figured 
among the sources of Luke. Such, besides, is the conclusion which we might have 
drawn from his prologue. The manner in which he contrasts the rco/iloi {many), 
compilers of previous writings, with the apostles and eye-witnesses of the events, for- 
bids us to rank the Apostle Matthew among the former ; so that if he shared the re- 
ceived opinion which ascribed to Matthew the first Gospel, he cannot have ranked 
this book among the writings of which he speaks. It would certainly not be easier to 
maintain that, in a heap with so many ephemeral writings, he referred to such an im- 
portant work as that of Mark, which from the first times the Church (witness Papias, 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 553 

Clement, Irenaeus) signalized and regarded as one of the most precious documents re- 
garding the ministry of Jesus. 

II. 

Those two writings being set aside, what then are the sources from which Luke 
has drawn '? 

Criticism has sought to determine the sources of Luke, either from certain charac- 
teristics of his style, or from the religious tendencies of certain parts, or from the 
localities which form the scene of his narrative. 

1. Proceeding from the first point of view, Schleiermacher, as is well known, broke 
up our Gospel into a certain number of detached narratives, which the hand of the 
compiler had combined in such a way as to form them into a consecutive history. 
The phrases of transition which we have indicated throughout our Gospel are in his 
eyes the conclusions of those short writings ; they do not belong, according to him, 
to the general compiler. This hypothesis cannot be maintained : a. Because those 
forms have too much resemblance not to be from the same hand. Besides, they reap- 
pear in the narrative of the Acts. b. The unity of style and plan proves that the 
evangelist was not a mere collector. The author, no doubt, possessed written materials ; 
but he used them in such a way as to work them into a homogeneous whole. As to the 
two accounts of journeys which Schleiermacher thinks have been amalgamated in one 
in the piece 9 : 51-19 : 27, see at p. 287. 

2. We have already spoken of the great Judeo-Christian Gospel, in which 
Keim finds the substance of the greater part of Luke's Gospel. But as 
there is no necessity for regarding Luke's narrative as swayed by opposing 
religious currents, Keim's hypothesis falls to the ground with the fact on which it 
was based. According to Hilgenfeld, the author consulted a third document besides 
Matthew and Mark, that which is reproduced in a modified form in the journal 
(9 : 51-19 : 27). But if this piece formed one whole by itself, whence comes it that, 
at the point where Luke's account rejoins that of Matthew and Mark (18 : 15), we 
find not the least sign of the end of the interpolated piece ? Hilgenfeld ascribes an 
altogether peculiar character to this piece — the austerity of the Christian life ; and a 
special aim — to narrate the formation of a circle of disciples whose work, passing be- 
yond the Jewish domain, was to form a prelude to that of Paul. But this aim enters 
into the progressive movement of the whole book, and the first characteristic referred 
to belongs to the entire teaching of Jesus (the rich young man). 

3. Kostlin thinks he can maintain a source specially Judean for the events which 
are said to have passed in Judea, and for those of which Samaria was the theatre, or 
in which the Samaritan people play a part — a Samaritan source. Keim regards this 
latter, the basis of the account of the journey (9 : 51-18 : 27), as one and the same 
work with the document which furnishes the account given in the Acts of the con- 
version of a Samaritan population (Acts 8). As well might we speak of an Abyssinian 
source for the narrative of the noble belonging to the court of Candace, etc. As if it 
were necessary to bring local interest into the composition of such a history ! For a 
similar reason, Bleek takes Galilee as the place of the composition of his original Gos- 
pel—the principal source of Matthew and Luke. The preponderance of the Galilean 
ministry, and the omission of the journeys to Jerusalem, in this fundamental writing, 
arise from a predilection of a local nature. This hypothesis is as unsatisfactory. 
The more elevated the sphere of a narrative is, the loss probable is it that the place of 



554 COMMENT ARV OX ST. LUKE. , 

its origin determined its horizon. This is not the time to occupy ottrselves -with 
other alleged sources of Luke, to the supposition of which criticism has been led by 
the mysterious relation which unites our three synoptics, expressly the primitive 
Matthew (or Logia) and the proto-Mark. This question will occur when we come to 
study the relations between the synoptics. 

For ourselves, the following is all that we conclude from our exegeticai study : 
1st. We have established a source of purely Jewish origin : the genealogical docu- 
ment 3 : 23 et seq. (see the exegesis). 2d. From 1 : 5 we have found ourselves face to 
face with an* account of a wholly Judeo-Christian character, both in substance, see- 
ing it renders with incomparable freshness the impressions of the first actors in the 
Gospel drama ; and in form, for the style leaves no doubt as to the language in 
which it was written. This piece (chaps. 1 and 2), the Aramaic character of which 
Luke has preserved in Greek as faithfully as possible, may have been a detached ac- 
count preserved in the family of Jesus, or have belonged to a more considerable 
whole, one of the works spoken of by Luke. The other parts of the Gospel, all of 
which, except the account of the Passion, betray an Aramaic basis, must have ema- 
nated also from the Judeo-Christian Church. We shall probably never know 
whether those pieces were taken from different writings or borrowed from one and 
the same work. 3d. The parts in which this Hebrew character is less perceptible, 
in matter and form, have probably been composed in Greek on the basis of oral nar- 
ratives, public or private. Thus the account of the Passion, in which we shall find 
certain classical turns of expression (23 : 12, irpovm/pxou ; 5 : 15, earl Tcenpaynevov avru ; 
5 : 18, 7ra.{nrA7]Bei), if it is not the work of Luke himself, might be taken from one of the 
Gospels antecedent to Luke, composed in Greek. 4th. The narrative of the institu 
tion of the Holy Supper is certainly of Pauline origin ; comp. 1 Cor. 11. Was this 
source written ? Was it, perhaps, the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians ? In this latter 
case, Luke must have quoted from memor}^, as seen from the differences between the 
two forms. Or was it purely oral ? Luke, having often celebrated the Holy Supper 
with Paul (Acts 20), might have retained in his memory more or less literally the 
formula which the apostle used on those occasions. Such is all that we think can be 
advanced with any probability, proceeding upon the study of the Gospel. 

II. — The Relations and Origin of the Synoptics. 

We shall first examine the systems which are at present current ; thereafter, we 
shall state our own view. 

I. 

A. Most critics are now agreed on this point, that Matthew and Mark were not de- 
pendent on Luke. No doubt, Bleek traces back Mark to Matthew and Luke ; and, 
according to Volkmar, Matthew was borrowed from Luke and Mark. But those opin- 
ions do not enjoy anything like general acceptance. Bleek's most plausible argument 
is that which he derives from certain phrases of Mark, in which the text of the other 
two seems .to be combined. But if Mark was such a close copyist as to place side by 
side two phrases identical in meaning, that he might not lose a word or part of a 
phrase belonging to th$ text of his predecessors, how, on the other hand, would he 
reject immense pieces from their works, or modify it in so serious a way as lie often 
does ? The phenomenon which has misled Bleek, and some others before him, arises 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 55o 

simply from that somewhat wordy style of amplification which characterizes Mark, 
and which appears throughout his whole narrative. As to Volkmar's opinion, it con- 
tradicts two obvious facts : the vigorous originality of Matthew's style, and the brev- 
ity of his narratives in comparison with Luke's. As an example, let the history of 
the centurion at Caperuaum be taken, in which, for all the steps adopted by him to 
avoid approaching Jesus personally, and even to prevent His coming under his roof 
(in Luke), Matthew substitutes the words, " He came unto Him, beseeching Him ;" 
or the history of the paralytic, in which Matthew would be made to borrow from 
Luke the words, " And seeing their faith," after having suppressed all the circum- 
stances to which this expression refers ! All this proves nothing, I know, to a man 
like Volkmar, who thinks that the evangelists manipulate their materials according to 
their caprice. How could the first evangelist have arbitrarily created his great dis- 
courses by means of the teachings of Jesus scattered throughout Luke ? Such pro- 
cedure is as inadmissible as the dislocation which others ascribe to Luke. 

B. Luke being disposed of, the only possible question regarding the origin of Mark 
and Matthew is this, Does the one depend on the other ? The general plan in both is 
very similar) the contrast between the Galilean ministry and the sojourn at Jerusa- 
lem). Between those two parts there is also found in both writings a very brief ac- 
count of the journey through Perea. The order of the narratives is almost identical 
from the conversation at Cesarea Philippi ; there are more considerable differences in 
the first part of the Galilean ministry, but the cause of them may be ascribed to the 
manner in which the Sermon on the Mount, omitted by Mark, is prefixed to it iu 
Matthew. Finally, at every moment we meet with identical or similar phrases in both 
Gospels. 

But, on the other hand, if Mark used Matthew, whence comes it that, besides those 
identical phrases, we have continual differences which, on the supposition of a text 
being before him, assume by their very insignficance an intolerable character of toy- 
ing and affectation of originality ? Whence come those differences in respect of mat- 
ter, partly mutilations, partly amplifications, sometimes insoluble or apparent contra- 
dictions? As when Mark makes Jesus say, " Nothing, save sandals ;" where Mat- 
thew says, " Take nothing, not even sandals." So when, in the narrative of the ex- 
pulsion of the sellers from the temple, and in that of the barren fig-tree, Mark places 
those events on a different day from that on which they transpired according to Mat- 
thew. So in the account of the calling of Matthew, where Mark, on this supposition, 
substitutes for the person of the apostle au unknown personage named Levi, without 
making the slightest allusion to the name of Matthew, which the first Gospel gives to 
this publican ; then, in the cures of the demoniac, and of the blind man of Jericho, in 
which Mark mentions only one sufferer instead of the two spoken of by his model? 
Klostermann's opinion, which makes Matthew's account the text on which Mark en- 
grafted the descriptive glosses which he received from Peter, likewise falls to the 
ground before the difficulties mentioned. 

Or was it Matthew who used Mark ? But Matthew's method is wholly original and 
independent of Mark's. He loves to group homogeneous events round a prophetic 
text. This organic principle is in keeping with the fundamental view of his Gospel.* 

* After a general prophecy, given as the basis of the entire narrative of the Gali- 
lean ministry (4 : 14-16), there follow : 1. The Sermon on the Mount ; 2. A collection 
of deeds of power (chaps. 8 and 9), grouped round I he prophecy of Isaiah, quoted 
8 : 17 ; 3. The instructions to the Twelve, chap. 10 ; 4. A collection of the utterances 



556 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

It has nothing in common with the order followed by Mark. Then, in most cases, 
we should be forced to think that he made it his business to spoil the narratives of his 
model ; so in the cure of the paralytic, in that of the blind man of Jericho, and par- 
ticularly in that of the lunatic son. Why, besides, omit the names of the four dis- 
ciples in the conversation of Jesus with the apostles on the Mount of Olives (Mark 13) ? 
Why, in relating the preparation for the Passover, say, He sent His disciples, as if it 
was all of them, while his predecessor expressly said, two of His disciples ? Why 
omit in the prayer of Gethsemane those beautiful words preserved by Mark, 
" Father, all things are possible unto Thee," etc., etc. 

In fine, it is impossible to conceive anything more capricious and less reverential 
than the part which we make the author of any one whatever of our synoptic Gospels 
play, with the history and sayings of Jesus, supposing that he had before him the 
other two, or one of them. Such an explanation will only be allowable when we are 
brought absolutely to despair of finding any other. And even then it were better still 
to say, Non liquet. For this explanation involves a moral contradiction. Most of our 
present critics are so well aware of this, that they have recourse to middle terms. 
By common sources they seek to explain the relation between those three writings, or 
they combine this mode with the preceding. We have already described in our in- 
troduction the numerous systems of this kind which are proposed at the present day. 

C. Bleek derives Matthew and Luke from a Greek Gospel, composed in Galilee. This 
hypothesis appears to us as unfruitful as those which derive them from one another. 
Take, for example, the Lord's Prayer. A common text, whence the two evangelists 
derived the terms of this formulary which both have transmitted to us, is not less in- 
conceivable than the deriving of one of those reports from the other, unless we ascribe 
to either of them an incredible degree of arbitrariness in regard to a most solemn ut- 
terance of the Master. And the same phenomenon reappears from beginning to end 
of our two Gospels ! Besides, the prologue of Luke protests against Bleek's explana- 
tion. Luke speaks of many Gospel narratives which were in existence at the time 
when he wrote. Bleek's hypothesis supposes only one. To escape from his diffi- 
culty, this critic reduces the many writings of which Luke speaks to simple revisions 
of that original Gospel ; but Luke evidently understood by those many writings not 
rehandlings of one and the same fundamental work, but different and independent 
compilations of apostolic tradition. 

The hypothesis most in favor in these last times is one which, recognizing the 
originality of Mark, places him at the head of the Gospel historiography, so far at 
least as the narrative part is concerned, but in an older form : the so-called proto- 
Mark, the common source of our three synoptics. Moreover, a second source was used 
by Matthew and Luke : tlie collection of discourses, the Logia of Matthew. Holtz- 
mann has developed this hypothesis in a work which is one of the finest fruits of criti- 
cal research in our century. Let us examine those two hypotheses of the Logia and 
the yyroto-Mark. 

That there existed a collection of discourses written by the Apostle Matthew, which 
was one of the oldest Gospel documents, we have not the least doubt. The ground 
of our conviction is not so much the testimony of Papias, of which Gieseler rightly 

of wisdom (chaps. 11 and 12), grouped round the prophecy of Isaiah, quoted 12 : 17 ; 
5. The parables of the kingdom, chap. 13 ; 6. A series of excursions to the east, north, 
and north-east, filling up the prophetic programme laid down as the basis of the Gal- 
ilean ministry. 



COMMENTARY OK ST. LUKE. 557 

says : l; Separated as this notice appears from its context, it is difficult to draw from 
it any certain conclusion ;" it is rather the form of our first Gospel itself in which we 
meet with great bodies of discourses distributed at certain points of the narrative, and 
which appear to have existed as such antecedently to the work in which they are in- 
serted. It is difficult to avoid the impression that those bodies of discourses original- 
ly formed one whole. Weizsacker has, with a muster hand, as it appears to us, traced 
the plan of this original Matthew (pp. 184-186). The apostolic treatise opened with 
the Sermon on the Mount ; it was the invitation to enter into the kiDgdom, the foun- 
dation of the edifice. There followed as the second part of the collection, the dis- 
courses addressed to particular persons, such as the instructions given to the apostles 
(Matt. 10), the testimony regarding John the Baptist (Matt. 11), and the great apolo- 
getic discourse (Matt. 12). Finally, the eschatological prophecy (Matt. 24 : 25) consti- 
tuted the third part ; it formed the climax of the collection, the delineation of the 
hopes of the Church. The other groups of instructions, the collection of parables 
(chap. 13), the discourse on the duties of the disciples to one another and on disci- 
pline (chap. 18), formed, according to Weizsacker, an appendix corresponding to cer- 
tain practical wants of the Church. We would introduce some modifications into this 
reconstruction of the Logia as proposed by Weizsacker.* But this matters little to 
the question before us ; the main thing is that such a work existed, and very nearly 
as conceived by Weizsacker. Holtzmann thinks, on the contrary, that the sayings of 
Jesus rather appeared in the Logia in the form in which we find them in Luke's nar- 
rative of the journey (9 : 18) ; it was the author of our first Gospel, according to him, 
who grouped them into systematic discourses. 

We shall begin by criticising this second view. 1. It seems to us impossible, as 
we have already remarked in opposition to Volkmar, that the author of a historical 
work, such as our canonical Matthew, took the liberty of gathering into certain large 
masses sayings uttered in different circumstances, to form so-called discourses of 
which he might say they were uttered by Jesus at this or that time. 2. Holtzmann's 
hypothesis is opposed by the unanimous conviction of the Church, which from the 
beginning has attached the name of Matthew to our first Gospel. According to this 
view it would really be the Gospel of Luke which had preserved the Logia in 
l heir true form, and which ought to have inherited the name of the Apostle Matthew. 
By attaching to our first gospel the name of Matthew, the Church has shown, on the 
contrary, that it was this work which was the depositary of the treasure bequeathed 
to the world by this apostle. 3. The strongest objection to the use of the Logia 
by our two evangelists is always, in our view, the wholly different terms in which 
the teachings of Jesus are conveyed in the two recensions. One copies discourses if he 
believes in them ; one invents them if he does not. The supposed middle way, three 

* Instead of making the collection of the parables an appendix, we should make 
it the centre of the work. The Logia of Matthew, that collection intended to repro- 
duce our Lord's teaching in its essential characteristics, opened, we should say, with 
the exposition of the righteousness of the kingdom of heaven, in the Sermon on the 
Mount. There followed the description of the development of that kingdom, in the 
collection of the parables (Matt. 13) ; finally, the great eschatological discourse, Matt. 
24 and 25, announcing the consummation of the kingdom, was the cope-stone of the 
edifice. Between those principal parts there were placed, like passages between the 
apartments properly so called, certain subordinate instructions, such as the discourse 
on John the Baptist, on the casting out of devils, and on discipline in the Church 
(Matt. 11 : 12, and 18). 



558 COMMENTARY ON ST< LT r KE 4 

words of copy, three words of invention, seems to us an impossibility. No doubt it 
might be asserted that each author combined with the use of the common source (the 
" Logia") that of different particular sources. But what an impossible procedure is 
that which we thereby reach ! Three words borrowed from the common source, 
three from one or other of the special sources, and this for the composition of every 
phrase ! What a mosaic ! What an amalgam ! 

Can we, on the other hand, adopt the opinion of Weizsacker? Were the great 
discourses of the " Logia," as preserved intact by Matthew, the source at the same 
time of the teachings of Jesus, as reported by Luke ? No. For : 1. We cannot 
admit that Luke at his own hand displaced those great discourses. 2. This supposi- 
tion is rendered untenable by all the proofs which our exegesis has supplied of the 
truth of the historical prefaces which introduce the declarations reported by Luke. It 
would be impossible to conceive a procedure more recklessly arbitrary than that 
which Weizsacker ascribes to this author, when he makes him invent situations for 
discourses, discourses which he began by carving out of the "Logia" at pleasure. 
3. This arbitrariness would reach its height in the invention of the narrative of the 
journey, 9 : 51-18 : 27. This journey, according to this view, was out and out a 
fiction of the writer, intended to serve as a framework for all the materials which 
remained unused. What would be thought of a writer who should act in this way 
after having declared that he would seek to relate all things exactly and in order ? 

The work of the " Logia" then existed, and we think that it may be found entire 
in our first Gospel. But it is not thence that Luke has drawn our Lord's discourses. 
And this result is confirmed by Luke's own declaration, from which it appears that, 
among the gospel works which had preceded his own, he found none proceeding 
from an apostle. • , 

In regard to the second source, that from which the materials of the narrative com- 
mon to our three synoptics is said to have been derived, the proto-Mark, not only do 
we deny that our three synoptics can be explained by such a work, but we do not 
believe that it ever existed. 1. Eusebius, who knew the work of Papias, some lines of 
which have given rise to the hypothesis of an original Mark, distinct from ours, 
never suspected such a difference ; so far as he was concerned, he had no hesitation 
in applying the testimony of Papias to our canonical Mark. 2. If there had existed 
a gospel treatise enjoying such authority that our first three evangelists took from it 
the framework and the essential materials of their narrative, Luke certainly could 
not, as he does in his prologue, put the writings anterior to his own in one and the 
same category, and place them all a degree lower than the narrative which he pro- 
posed to write. He must have mentioned in a special manner a document of such 
importance. 3. Neither the special plan of each of our synoptics, nor the transpo- 
sitions of histories, nor the differences more or less considerable which appeared in 
the details of each narrative, can be satisfactorily explained on the supposition of this 
unique and common source. Compare only the three accounts of the baptism of 
Jesus, or of the blind man of Jericho (see the exegesis) ! And as to the discourses, 
those at least which are derived from the proto-Mark, take a synopsis and attempt to 
explain the three texts by a common document, and the levity or puerility which 
must be ascribed now to the one and again to the other of our three evangelists, to 
make them draw from one and the same document, will be fully apparent ! See, for 
example, the saying on the blasphemy of the Spirit (Luke 12 : 10 and parall.). In 
most cases Holtzmann enumerates the differences, and he images that he has ex- 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 559 

plained them ! 4. The decisive argument seems to us to be that which is founded 
on the style of the three gospels. As Weiss says, " A writing so harmoniously and 
vigorously composed as our first gospel cannot be an extract from another writing." 
In no case could it proceed from a writing the literary stamp of which had the least 
resemblance to that of Mark. And Luke ? Once more, it would be he who had 
taken a fancy to introduce into the text of the proto-Mark those so pronounced Ara- 
maisms which distinguish his gospel from the other two ! From this proto-Mark 
from which Matthew derived good Greek for Hebrews, Luke took Hebraised Greek 
for Greeks ! The proto-Mark is a hypothesis which cannot be substantiated either in 
point of fact or in point of right ; for were there really such a writing, it would 
nevertheless be incapable of doing the service for criticism which it expects from it, 
that is, supply the solution of the enigma of the synoptics. Besides, the last authors 
who have written on the subject, Weiss, Klostermann, Volkmar, though starting 
from the most opposite standpoints, agree in treating this writing, which Schleier- 
macher introduced into criticism, as a chimera. 

But what does Weiss do ? Remaining attached to the idea of a written source as 
the basis of our canonical gospels, he ascribes to the original Matthew the " Logia," 
the part which he refuses to the proto-Mark. Only he is thereby obliged to assign 
historical, and not merely didactic, contents to this writing. No doubt he does not 
regard it as a complete gospel ; he thinks that it contained neither the records of the 
infancj r , nor those of the passion and resurrection. The book of the " Logia" began, 
according to him, with the baptism ; its contents were made up of detached narra- 
tives and discourses ; it closed with the account of the feast of Bethany. Thereafter 
came Mark, who labored under the guidance of this apostolic Matthew, and first 
gave the gospel narrative its complete framework ; and those two writings, the 
" Logia" and Mark, became the common sources of our canonical Matthew and Luke 
But, 1. If Weiss justly complains that he cannot form a clear idea of the book of the 
" Logia" as it is represented by Holtzmann (a writing beginning with the testimony 
of Jesus regarding John the Baptist, and closing with a collection of parables), why 
not apply the same judgment to the apostolic Matthew of W r eiss ? What is a book 
beginning with the baptism and ending with the feast of Bethany, if it is not, to the 
letter, a writing without either head or tail ? 2. Would it not be strange if Mark, 
the work which tradition declares by the mouth of Papias to be destitute of histori- 
cal order, were precisely that which had furnished the type of the historical order 
followed by our synoptics ? 3. It follows from the prologue, 1 : 1-4, that when 
Luke wrote, he had not yet before him any work written by an apostle ; and, ac- 
cording to Weiss, he must have had the apostolic Matthew in his hands. 4. While 
rendering all justice to the perspicacity and accuracy displayed by Weiss in the dis- 
cussion of texts one is nevertheless painfully affected with the arbitrariness belonging to 
such a criticism. It always comes in the end to this, to educe the dissimilar from the 
same. For this end it must be held, unless one is willing to throw himself into the 
system of wilful and deliberate alterations (Baur), that the acts and sayings of Jesus 
were an elastic material in the hands of the evangelists, a sort of India rubber which 
each of them stretched, lengthened, contracted, and shaped at pleasure. Will a 
supposition which is morally impossible ever lead to a satisfactory result ? The last 
step to be taken on this view was to assign to the " Logia" of Matthew the totality 
of the gospel narrative ; this is what Klostermann has done ; and so we are brought 



560 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

back to the hypothesis which makes our Matthew, or a writing perfectly similar, the 
principal source of the other two synoptics. 

Hollzmann consoles himself for the little agreement obtained by all this labor up 
till now, by saying that this immense labor, reaching nearly over a century, cannot 
remain without fruit. But on a mistaken route it is possible to perform prodigies of 
agility, to take marvellous leaps, to make forced marches, without advancing a step 
toward the goal, because the direction is perverse. Such appears to us to be the 
condition in which criticism has labored so energetically. Far, then, from seeking 
still to advance like Weiss* in this direction, the time seems to us to have come for 
retracing our steps, in order to recover the way which Luke himself indicated, and 
which Gieseler brought to light. True, the attempt made by this eminent historian 
has not been followed ; but rather than turn away from it with disdain, criticism 
should have sought to supply what in it was defective. This is what we shall at- 
tempt to do. 

II. 

If, in the systems which we have passed in review, the difficulty is to reconcile 
the differences between our gospels with the use of common written sources, or with 
the dependence which they must be supposed to have on one another, the difficulty 
for us will be to explain, without such dependence and without such a use, the 
resemblances which in so many respects make those three writings, as it were, one 
and the same work : resemblance in the plan (omission of the journeys to Jerusalem); 
resemblance in the sequence of the narratives (identical cj'cles) ; resemblance in the 
matter of the narratives ; resemblance sometimes even in details of style. To solve 
the problem, let us begin by ascending to the source of this river, with its three 
branches. 

After the foundation of the Church, on the day of Pentecost, it was necessary to 
labor to nourish those thousands of souls who had entered into the new life. Among 
the means enumerated iu the Acts which served to edify the new-born Church, the 
apostles' doctrine (2 : 42) stands in the first place. What does this term mean ? It 
could not suffice to repeat daily to the same persons that proclamation of the death 
and resurrection of our Lord whereby Peter had founded the Church. It must soon 
have been necessary to go back on the narrative of Jesus' ministry. But the expres- 
sion, apostles' doctrine, shows that those oral narratives did not bear simply on the 
acts and miracles of Jesus, but also, and even specially, on His teachings. Before 
Paul and John had set forth our Lord Himself as the essence of the Gospel, the apos- 
tles' doctrine could not well be anything else than the reproduction and application 
of the Master's discourses. One day, therefore, it was the Sermon on the Mount ; 
another, the discourse on the relations between believers (Matt. 18) ; a third, the es- 
chatological discourse, by means of which the community of the faithful was edified. 
It was repeated, and then commented on. With the exception of John, the Twelve 
probably never passed beyond this elementary sphere of Christian teaching. It was 
still within this that Peter moved in his instructions (ditiaoicaMcu) as he travelled, and 
at Rome, at the time of which Papias speaks, and when Mark, his interpreter, ac- 
companied him collecting his narratives. And was it not, indeed, with a view to this 
special task of " testifying what they had seen and heard," that Jesus had chosen and 

* " Das Marcus-Evangelium und seine syn. Parallelen," 1872, 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LIKE. 561 

formed the Twelve ? Nor were they slow to abandon the other duties with which 
they were at first charged, such as the serving of tlie common tables, in order to devote 
themselves exclusively to this work (Acts 6). 

The rich materials for those recitals (John 21 : 24, 25) must at an early period have 
become contracted and concentrated, both as regards the discourses and the facts. 
In respect to the latter, for each category of miracles the attention was given pre- 
ferentially to one or two peculiarly prominent examples. In respect to the discourses, 
as these were reproduced not in a historical interest, but with a view to the edification 
of believers, the apostolic exposition gradually fastened on some specially important 
points in the ministry of Jesus, such as those of the Sermon on the Mount, of the 
sending of the Twelve, of the announcement of the destruction of the temple, and to 
the subjects which Jesus had treated of on those occasions, and with which they con- 
nected without scruple the most salient of the other teachings of Jesus of a kindred 
sort. It was a matter of salvation, not of chronology. 

They likewise became accustomed, in those daily instructions, to connect certain 
narratives with one another which had some intrinsic analogy as a bond of union 
(Sabbatic scenes, aspirants to the divine kingdom, groups of parables), or a real his- 
torical succession (the storm, the Gadarene demoniac, Jairus, etc.). Thus there were 
formed cycles of narratives more or less fixed which they were in the habit of relat- 
ing at one stretch ; some cycles united together became groups, traces of which we 
find in our synoptics, and which Lachmann, in his interesting essay on the subject 
(" Stud. u. Critik. " 1835), has called corpuscula evangelicce historice ; for example, the 
group of the Messianic advent (the ministry of John the Baptist, the baptism and 
temptation of Jesus) ; that of the first days of the ministry of Jesus (His teachings 
and miracles at Capernaum and the neighborhood) ; that of the first evangelistic jour- 
neys, then of the more remote excursions ; that of the last days of His ministry in 
Galilee ; that of the journey through Perea ; thai of the sojourn at Jerusalem. The 
order of particular narratives within the cycle, or of cycles within the group, might 
easily be transposed ; a narrative could not so easily pass from one cycle to another, 
or a cycle from one group into another. 

In this process of natural and spontaneous elaboration, all in the interest of prac- 
tical wants, the treatment of the Gospel must have imperceptibly taken, even down 
to details of expression, a very fixed form. In the narrative parts, the holiness of the 
subject excluded all ornamentation and refinement. The form of the narrative was 
simple, like that of a garment which exactly fits the body. In such circumstances, 
the narrative of facts passed uninjured through various mouths ; it preserved the gen- 
eral stamp which it had received when it was first put into form by the competent 
witness. A little more liberty was allowed in regard to the historical framework ; 
but, in repeating the words of Jesus, which formed the prominent feature in every 
narrative, the received form was absolutely adhered to. The jewel remained un- 
changeable ; the frame varied more. The reproduction of the discourses was more 
exposed to involuntary alterations. But precisely here the memory of the apostles 
had powerful helps ; above all, the striking original plastic character of the sayings 
of Jesus. There are discourses which one might hear ten times without remembering 
a single phrase verbally. There are others which leave a certain number of sentences 
indelibly impressed on the mind, and which ten hearers would repeat, many days 
after, almost identically. Everything depends on the way in which the thoughts are 
conceived and expressed. Formed within the depths of His soul, the words of Jesus 



562 COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 

received under the government of a powerful concentration that settled, finished, per- 
fect impress by means of which they became stereotyped, as it were, on the minds of 
His hearers. This sort of eloquence, besides, took possession of the whole man ; of 
conscience, by its moral truth ; of the understanding, by the precision of the idea ; of 
the heart, by the liveliness of feeling ; of the imagination, by the richness of its col- 
oring ; and what the whole man has'received, he retains easily and faithfully. Finally, 
the apostles were convinced of the transcendent value of the things which they heard 
from His mouth ; Jesus Himself did not allow them to forget it. They knew that 
they were called soon to proclaim from the house-tops what was said to them in the 
ear. They had not heard the warning in vain : " Take heed how ye hear." They 
conversed daily regarding all that they heard together ; and, even during the lifetime 
of their Master, a common tradition was forming among them. Those sentences 
standing out in such pure and marked relief graven upon them by frequent repe- 
tition, needed only an external call to be drawn forth from their mind in their native 
beauty, and to be produced almost as they had received them. Indeed, I cannot 
conceal my astonishment that so great a difficulty should have been found in the fact 
that the sayings of Jesus are almost identically reproduced in our Gospels. The 
differences surprise me much more than the resemblances. The source of this fixed- 
ness is neither Luke copying Matthew, nor Matthew copying Luke. It is the power- 
ful spirit of a Master like Jesus taking possession of the minds of simple, calm, and 
teachable disciples like the apostles. This was precisely the result aimed at by that 
order of providence whereby His Father had brought to Him as disciples, not the 
scribes and the learned of the capital, but little children, new bottles, tabulm ram,. 

In the first times, evangelization was carried forward in Aramaic, the language of 
the people and of the apostles. And the poverty of this language, both in syntactical 
forms and in its vocabulary, also contributed to the fixity of the form which tradition 
took. But there was, even at Jerusalem, a numerous Jewish population which spoke 
only Greek — the Hellenistic Jews. They possessed in the capital some hundreds of 
synagogues, where the Old Testament was known only in the translation of the LXX. 
From the time when the Church welcomed Jews of this class — and that was from its 
cradle, as is proved by the narrative Acts 6 — the need of reproducing in Greek the 
apostolic system of evangelization must have made itself imperiously felt. This work 
of translation was difficult and delicate, especially as regarded the sayings of Jesus. 
It was not done at random ; those of the apostles who knew Greek, such as Andrew, 
Philip (John 12), and no doubt Matthew, did not fail to engage in it. There were 
especially certain expressions difficult to render, for which the corresponding Greek 
term required to be carefully selected. Once found and adopted, the Greek expres- 
sion became fixed and permanent ; so the words kinovcios (daily) in the Lord's Prayer, 
and KTepvyiov (pinnacle) in the narrative of the temptation — expressions which have 
been wrongly quoted to prove the mutual dependence of our Gospels on a common 
written source.* From this Greek mould into which the primitive tradition was 
cast, it could not but come forth with a more fixed character still than it already pos- 
sessed in Aramaic. 

It maintained itself, no doubt, for some time in this purely oral form, Aramaic and 

* Holtzmann also adduces, in opposition to me, the verb with its double augment 
cnreKaTecTdBrj, used in the three synoptics. But the various reading dnoKaTeardSTi is 
found in the three texts, and usage might have consecrated this form with the double 
augment, as in some other verbs, 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 563 

Greek. We may apply to the apostles and evangelists, the depositaries of this treas- 
ure, what Dionysius of Halicarnassns says of the Homeric logographers : " They dis- 
tributed their narratives over nations and cities, not always reproducing them in the 
same order, but always having in view the one common aim, to make known all those 
memorials, so far as they had been preserved, without addition and without loss." * 
Basil the Great reports a similar fact : down to his time (fourth century) the Church 
possessed no written liturgy for the Holy Supper — the sacramental prayers and 
formulae were transmitted by unwritten instruction.! And was not the immense store 
of Talmudic traditions, which forms St whole library, conveyed for ages solely by 
oral tradition ? 

How was the transition made from oral evangelization to written compilation ? 
The most natural conjecture, adopted by men like Schleiermacher, Neander, and 
even Bleek, is that they began by writing, not a Gospel — that would have appeared 
too great an undertaking — but detached descriptions and discourses. It was a hear- 
ers who desired to preserve accurately what he had heard, an evangelist who sought 
to reproduce his message more faithfully. At a time when books of prophecy were 
composed under the names of all the ancient Israelitish personages (Enoch, Esdras, 
etc.), when collections of apocryphal letters were palmed off on the ancient Greek 
philosophers — a Heraclitus, for example \ — who would be astonished to find that, 
among the fellow-laborers and hearers of the apostles, there were some who set them- 
selves to put in writing certain acts and certain discourses of the maD whose life and 
death were moving the world ? Those first compositions might have been written in 
Aramaic and in Greek, at Jerusalem, Antioch, or any other of the lettered cities 
where the Gospel flourished. 

Those adversaria, or detached accounts taken from the history of Jesus, were 
soon gathered into collections more or less complete. Such were probably the writ- 
ings of the -koXKoI mentioned in Luke's prologue. They were not organic works, all 
the parts of which were regulated by one idea, like our Gospels, and so they are lost 
— they were accidental compilations, simple collections of anecdotes or discourses ; 
but those works had their importance as a second stage in the development of Gospel 
historiography, and a transition to the higher stage. Thus were collected the 
materials which were afterward elaborated by the authors of our synoptic Gospels. 

In oral tradition thus formed, -and then in those first compilations and collections 
of anecdotes, do we not possess a basis firm enough on the one hand, and elastic 
enough on the other, to explain the resemblance as well as the diversity which pre- 
vails between our three synoptics ; and, in fine, to resolve that complicated problem 
which defies every attempt at solution by so unyielding an expedient as that of a writ- 
ten model ? 

1. The most striking feature of resemblance in the general plan, the omission of 
the journeys to Jerusalem, is explained, not perhaps fully, but at least more easily, 
in the way which w T e propose than in any other. Oral tradition becoming condensed 
in the form of detached narratives, aDd afterward grouped in cycles, the journeys to 
Jerusalem, which did not lend themselves so easily to the end of popular evangeliza- 
tion as the varied scenes and very simple discourses of the Galilean ministry, were 

* " Judic. de Thucyd." ii. p. 138, edit. Sylburg (quoted by Gieseler). 
f "DeSpir. Sauct." c. 27. 

% Bernays, " Die Heraclitischen Briefe" (three of which, according to this critic, 
belong to the first century of our era). 



564 COMMENTARY 0$ ST. LUKE. 

neglected. The matter took shape without them ; and so much the more, because 
they did not enter into any of the groups which were formed. When the tradition 
was compiled, this element in it was wanting, and the gap was not filled up till later, 
when the narrative of an eye-witness (John) gave a new delineation of the ministry of 
Jesus in a manner completely independent of the traditional elaboration. 

2. If our narratives have such a traditional origin as we have Indicated, we can 
easily explain both the identical series of accounts which we sometimes meet in our 
synoptics, and the transposition of particular accounts. 

3. The resemblances in the substance of the narratives are explained quite natu- 
rally by the objectivity of the facts which left its stamp on the recital ; and the differ- 
ences, by the involuntary modifications due to oral reproduction and to the multi- 
plicity of written compends. There is one thing especially which is naturally 
accounted for in this way. We have again and again remarked, especially in the 
accounts of miracles, the contrast which obtains between the diversity of the histori- 
cal framework in the three synoptics, and the sameness of the sayings of Jesus during 
the course of the action. This contrast is inexplicable if the writings are derived 
from one another or from a written source. It is easily understood from our view ; 
the style of the sayings of Jesus had become more rigidly fixed in traditional narra- 
tion than the external details of the Gospel scenes. 

There remain the resemblances of style between the three writings — the identical 
clauses, the common expressions, the syntactical forms or grammatical analogies. 
If oral tradition became formed and formulated, as we have said, if it was early com- 
piled in a fragmentary way, if those compilations were used by the authors of out- 
Gospels, those resemblances no longer present anything inexplicable, and the differ- 
ence which alternate with them at every mstant no longer require to be explained b} r 
forced expedients. The two phenomena, which are contradictory on every other 
hypothesis, come into juxtaposition, and harmonize naturally. 

Starting from this general point of view, let us seek to trace the special origin of 
each of our three synoptics. The traditions argee in ascribing to Matthew the first 
Gospel compilation which proceeded from an apostle. It was, according to Irenaeus, 
" at the time when Peter and Paul were together founding the Church at Rome" 
(from 63-64), or, according to Eusebius, " when Matthew was preparing to go to 
preach to other nations" (after 60), that this apostle took pen in hand. This approx- 
imate date (60-64) is confirmed by the warning, in the form of a parenthesis, which 
we find inserted by the evangelist in the eschatological discourse of Jesus (24 : 15). 
Our Lord declares to the disciples the sign by which the Christians of Judea shall 
recognize the time for fleeing from the Holy Land ; and Matthew adds here this 
remarkable nota bene: "Whoso readeth, let him understand." * This parenthesis 
contains the proof that, when this discourse was compiled, the Judeo-Christian 
believers had not yet retired beyond the Jordan, as they did about the year 66. What 
was the writing of Matthew ? Was it *a complete Gospel ? The reasons which we 
have indicated rather lead us think that the apostle had compiled in Aramaic the 
great bodies of discourses containing the doctrine of Jesus, as it had been put into 
form by tradition, with a view to the edification of the flocks in Palestine. It is 
those bodies of discourses which are the characteristic feature of our first Gospel ; it 

* This warning is not connected with the quotation from Daniel, and forms no 
part of the discourse of Jesus ; this appears from Mark (where the quotation from 
Daniel is unauthentic). 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 565 

is round this dominant element that the book appears to be organized all through. 
The narrative part is an addition to this original theme. It was not composed in 
Hebrew ; the style does not admit of this supposition. Its date is a little later than 
that of the apostolic writing. For the presbyter, a native of Palestine, who instructed 
Papias remembered a time when, in the churches of Judea, they had no Greek 
translation of the "Discourses of Jesus" (the Logia), and when every evangelist 
reproduced them in Greek viva voce, as he could. What hand composed this historical 
narrative, in the framework of which the whole contents of the Logia have been skil- 
fully distributed ? Is it not most natural to suppose that one of Matthew's disciples 
while reproducing his Logia in Greek, set them in a complete narrative of the life of 
Jesus, and borrowed the latter from the traditional recital in such form as he had fre- 
quently heard it from the mouth of that apostle ? This tradition had taken, in the 
hands of Matthew, that remarkably summary and concise character which we have 
so often observed in the first Gospel. For his aim was not to describe the scenes, but 
merely to demonstrate by facts the thesis to which his apostolic activity seems to 
have been devoted : Jesus is THE CHRIST. The Logia seems also to have been 
arranged with a view to this thesis. Jesus the legislator, Matt. 5-7 ; the king, chap. 
13 ; the judge, chap. 24, 25 ; consequently THE MESSIAH. Comp. Matt. 1 : 1. 

Mark, according to tradition, wrote during, or shortly after, Peter's sojourn at 
Rome, about 64 ; consequently almost at the same time as Matthew. So, like Mat- 
thew, he records in the eschatological discourse the warning which it was customary 
in Palestine to add to the sayings of Jesus regarding the flight beyond the Jordan 
(13 : 14). The materials of his Gospel must have been borrowed, according to tradi- 
tion, from the accounts of Peter, whom Mark accompanied on his travels. Accord- 
ingly, he could not have used our first Gospel, which was not yet in existence, nor 
even the Logia, which could not yet nave reached him. How, then, are we to 
explain the very special connections which it is easy to establish between his writing 
and the first Gospel ? We have seen that this latter writing has preserved to us 
essentially the great didactic compositions which are the fruit of Matthew's labor, 
but set in a consecutive narrative. From whom did this narrative proceed ? In- 
directly from Matthew, no doubt ; but in the first place from Peter, whose influence 
had certainly preponderated in the formation of the apostolic tradition in all that 
concerned the facts of our Lord's ministry. The only difference between the first 
two Gospels therefore is, that while the one gives us the apostolic system of evangeliza- 
tion in the summary and systematic form to which it had been reduced by the labors 
of Matthew, the other presents it to us in all its primitive freshness, fulness, and sim- 
plicity, as it had been heard from the lips of Peter, with the addition of one or two of 
the great discourses (chaps. 3 and 13) due to the labors of Matthew (chaps. 12 and 24), 
and with which Mark had long been acquainted as a hearer of the Palestinian 
preaching.* The special differences between the two compilations are explained by 
the variable element which is always inevitable in oral evangelization. f It may thus 

* If Mark knew those discourses so well, he must have been acquainted with the 
Sermon on the Mount. Its place even is clearly indicated in his narrative (between 
vers. 19 and 20 of chap. 3). The only reason for his omilting this discourse must 
have been, that it did not fit in sufficiently to the plan of his Gospel, intended, as it 
was, for Gentile readers. 

f We can understand the series of evidences by which Klostennann has been led 
to regard the text of Mark as merely that of Matthew enriched with scholia due to 
the narratives of Peter. But what is to be made of the series of opposing evidences 
which we have so often enumerated ? 



566 COMMENTARY ON" ST. LUKE. 

be concluded that the first Gospel contains the work of Matthew, completed by the 
tradition which emanated from Peter ; and the second, the tradition of Peter, com- 
pleted by means of some parts of Matthew's work. 

Luke, according to the tradition and evidences which we have collected, must 
have composed his history in Greece at the same time when J^atthew was compiling 
his Logia in Palestine, and Mark the narratives of Peter at Rome. If so, it is per- 
fectly clear that he did not know and use those writings ; and this is what ex- 
egesis demonstrates. From what sources, then, has he drawn ? He has worked — as 
appears from our study of his book — on written documents, mostly Aramaic. But 
how are we to explain the obvious connection in certain parts between those docu- 
ments and the text of the other two Syn. ? It is enough to repeat that those docu- 
ments, at least those which related to the ministry of Jesus from His baptism on- 
ward, were compilations of that same apostolic tradition which forms the basis of 
our first two Gospels. The relationship between our three Gospels is thus explained. 
The Aramaic language, in which the most of Luke's documents were written, leads 
to the supposition that they dated, like those from which the same author composed 
the first part of the Acts, from the earliest times of apostolic evangelization. At that 
period the didactic exposition of Jesus' doctrine was probably not yet concentrated 
and grouped, as it was later, about some great points of time and some definite sub- 
jects. Tradition preserved many more traces of the various circumstances which had 
furnished our Lord with a text for His instructions. Hence those precious introduc- 
tions of Luke, and that exquisite appropriateness which lends a new charm to the 
discourses which he has preserved to us. As to the general concatenation of the Gos- 
pel events which we admire in Luke, he owes it undoubtedly to special information. 
It is of such sources of information that he, speaks in his prologue, and which en- 
abled him to reconstruct that broken chain of which tradition had preserved only the 
rings. 

Thus it is that we understand the relations and origin of the synoptics. Is this 
explanation chargeable with compromising the Gospel history, by making its accu- 
racy depend on a mode of transmission so untrustworthy as tradition ? Yes, if the 
period at which we are led to fix the compilation of those oral accounts was much 
more advanced. But from 60 to 65, tradition was still under the control of those who 
had contributed to form it, and of a whole generation contemporary with the facts 
related (1 Cor. 15 : 6, written in 58). In those circumstances, alterations might affect 
the surface, not the substance of the history. 

I would take the liberty of closing this important subject with an apologetic re- 
mark. There is perhaps no more decisive proof of the authenticity of the sayings of 
Jesus than the different forms in which they are transmitted to us by Matthew and 
Luke. An artificially composed discourse, like those which Livy puts into the mouth 
of his heroes, is one utterance ; but the discourses of Jesus, as they are presented to 
us by the two evangelists, are broken and f ragmentary. Moreover, those similar 
materials, which appear in both in entirely different contexts, must necessarily be 
more ancient than those somewhat artificial wholes in which we now find them. 
Those identical materials put to use in different constructions must have belonged t& 
an older edifice, cf which they are merely the debris. 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 567 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH. 

To get rid of the Mosaic revelation, rationalism has assumed an original contrast 
between Elohism and Jehovism, and sought to make the history of Israel the pro- 
gressive solution of this antagonism ; and in the same way, to reduce the appearing 
of Christianity to the level of natural events, the Tubingen school has setup a contrast 
\>etween apostolic Judeo-Christianity and the Christianity of Paul— a contrast the grad- 
ual solution of which is made to explain the course of history during the first two 
centuries. Reuss and Nicolas, without altogether sharing, especially the first, in this 
point of view, nevertheless retain the idea of a conflict between the two frac- 
tions of the Church, profound enough to lead the author of the Acts to the 
belief that he must seek to disguise it by a very inaccurate exposition of the 
views and conduct of his master Paul. But if we cannot credit this writer in re- 
gard to things in which he took part, how are we to found on his narrative when he 
describes much older events, such as those which are contained in his Gospel ? The 
importance of the question is obvious. Let us attempt, before closing, to throw light 
upon it. 

To prove the antagonism in question, the Tubingen school in the first place ad- 
vances the different tendencies which are said to be observable in the Gospels. Bur 
it is remarkable that, to demonstrate this conflict of tendencies, Baur was forced to 
give up the attempt of dealing with known quantities, our canonical Gospels, and to 
have recourse to the supposition of previous writings of a much more pronounced 
dogmatic character, which formed the foundation both of our Matthew and of our 
Luke, to wit, a primitive Matthew, exclusively legal and particularistic, and a primi- 
tive Luke, absolutely universalistic and antinomian. Thus they begin by ascribing 
to our Gospels an exclusive tendency ; then, not finding it in the books as we have 
them, they make them over again according to the preconceived idea which they have 
formed of them. Such is the vicious circle in which this criticism moves. The 
hypothesis of an antinomian * proto-Luke has been completely refuted within the 
Tubingen school itself ; we may therefore leave that supposition aside. There re- 
mains only the proto-Matthew. This is the last plank to which Hilgenfeld still clings. 
He discovers the elements of the primitive Matthew in the fragments which remain 
to us of the Gospel of the Hebrews. He alleges a natural and gradual transformation 
of this writing in the direction of universalism (the product being our canonical Mat- 
thew) ; afterward Mark, and then Luke, continued and completed the transformation 
of the Gospel history into pure Paulinism. But this construction is not less arbitrary 
than that of Baur. The Gospel of the Hebrews, as we have seen, has all the charac- 
teristics of an amplified and derived work, and cannot be the basis of our Matthew. 
Even Volkmar treats this Judaizing proto-Matthew as a chimera, no less than the 
antinomian proto-Luke. And what of himself ? He charges our three synoptics 
with being Paulinist writings, the sole Judaizing antagonist to which is . . . the 
Apocalypse. The work of John, such, according to Volkmar, is the true type of 
legal Judeo-Christianity, the document of which Baur seeks in vain in the primitive 

* Our author uses this word, like some others, not in its modern, but its exac. 
sense : the sense of opposition to the Mosaic ritual. — J. H. 



568 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

Matthew, which is invented by himself to meet the exigency of the case. But what ! we 
ask Volkmar, can you regard as strictly legal a writing which calls the Jewish people 
the synagogue of Satan (Rev. 3 : 9), and which celebrates with enthusiasm and in the 
most brilliant colors the entrance into heaven of innumerable converts of every nation, 
and tribe, and people, and tongue, who were notoriously the fruits of the labors of * 
the Apostle Paul ; which proclaims aloud the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus-Mes- 
siah, that perpetual blasphemy to the ears of the Jews ; and which, instead of deriv- 
ing salvation from circumcision and works, makes it descend from the throne of God 
and of the Lamb, of pure grace through faith in the blood of the Lamb, without any 
legal condition whatever? Such Judeo-Christianity, assuredly, is a Paulinism of 
pretty strong quality. And the apostle of the Gentiles would have asked nothing bet- 
ter than to see it admitted by all his adversaries. He would very quickly have laid 
down his arms.* 

Baur further alleges the authentic epistles of Paul (the four great ones), especially 
the second chapter of Galatians. The following are the contents of the passage. 
Paul gives an account of a private conference (kclt' 16 lav 6e) which he had with those 
of the apostles who enjoyed the highest consideration (rote 6okovgi), in which he stated 
to them {ave8efir]v) his mode of preaching among the Gentiles — a method which they 
so fully approved, that Titus, an uncircumcised Gentile, was immediately welcomed 
and treated at Jerusalem as a member of the Church (ver. 23). And if he held out 
in this case, though circumcision was in his view merely an external rite, and morally 
indifferent (1 Cor. 7 : 18, 19), it was not from obstinacy, but because of false brethren 
unawares brought in (6ta 6h tovS napeiaunTovS ipev6a6il(pov5) who claimed the right to 
impose it, and who thus gave to this matter the character of a question of principle 
(vers. 4, 5). Then, from those intruded false brethren, Paul returns to the apostles, 
whom he contrasts with them (cnrd 6Z ruv 6okovvtuv), and who, that is, the apostles, 
added no new condition to his statement (ov6hv irpoaaveBevro, referring to the avsQsfivv, 
ver. 2), but recognized iu him the man called to labor specially among the Gentiles, 
as in Peter the man specially charged with the apostolate to the Jews ; and on this 
basis they associated themselves with him and his work, by giving him the right hand 
of fellowship (vers. 6-10). That there was any shade of difference between him and 
the Twelve, Paul does not say ; we may conclude it, however, from this division of 
labor in which the confcence terminated. But that this shade was an opposition of 
principle, and that the Twelve were radically at one with the false brethren brought 
in, as Baur seeks to prove, is what the passage itself absolutely denies. The contrary 
also appears from the second fact related by Paul in this chapter — his contention with 
Peter at Antioch. For when Peter ceases all at once to mingle and eat with the 
Christians from among the Gentiles, for what does Paul rebuke him V For not walk- 
ing uprightly, for acting hypocritically, that is to say, for being unfaithful to his real 
conviction, which evidently assumes that Peter has the same conviction as Paul him- 
self. And this is a passage which is to prove, according to Baur, the opposition of 

* Chap. 2 : 29 is alleged, where a woman is spoken of who teaches to eat meats 
sacrificed to idols, and to commit impurity — a woman who, it is said, represents the 
doctrine of Paul. But to teach to eat meats Offered in sacrifice is to stimulate to the 
eating of them as such, that is to say, basely and wickedly outraging the scruples of 
the weak, or even with the view of escaping some disagreeable consequence, such as 
persecution, making profession of paganism. Now Paul, 1 Cor. 10, prescribes ex- 
actly the opposite line of conduct ; and as to impurity, we have 1 Cor. 6. It is liber- 
tinism and not Paulinism which is here stigmatized. 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 509 

principle between Paul and Peter. That here again there is a shade of difference im- 
plied between Paul and Peter, and even between Peter and James (" before that cer- 
tain came from James"), 1 am not concerned to deny. But no opposition of princi- 
ple between Peter and Paul is compatible with this account. Baur has further sought 
to rest his view on the enumeration of the parties formed at Corinth. According to 
1 Cor. 1 : 12, there were believers in this city who called themselves some of Paul, 
some of Apollos, some of Cephas, others of Christ. Baur reasons thus : As the first 
two parties differed only by a shade, it must have been the same with the latter two ; 
and as it appears from 2 Cor. 10:7, 11:22, that those who called themselves of 
Christ were ardent Judaizers who wished to impose the law on the Gentiles, the same 
conviction should be ascribed to those of Peter, and consequently to Peter himself. 
But the very precise enumeration of Paul obliges us, on the contrary, to ascribe to 
each of the four parties mentioned a distinct standpoint ; and if, as appears from 2 
Cor., those who are Christ's are really Judaizers, enemies of Paul, the contrast be- 
tween them and those of Cephas proves precisely that Peter and his party were not 
confounded with them ; which corresponds with the contrast established in Gal. 2 
between the false brethren brought in and the apostles, especially Peter. The epistles 
of St. Paul, therefore, do not in the least identify the Twelve with the Judaizers who 
opposed Paul ; consequently they exclude the idea of any opposition of principle be- 
tween apostolic Christianity and that of Paul. 

"What, then, to conclude, was the real state of things ? Behind Judeo-Christianity 
and the Christianity of the Gentiles there is Christ, the source whence everything in 
the Church proceeds. This is the unity to which we must ascend. During His 
earthly life, Jesus personally kept the law ; He even declared that He did not come 
to abolish, but to fulfil it. On the other hand, He does not scruple to call Himself 
the Lord of the Sabbath, to pronounce as morally null all the Levitical ordinances re- 
garding the distinction of clean and unclean meats (Malt. 15), to compare fasting and 
the whole legal system to a worn-out garment, which He is careful not to patch, be- 
cause He comes rather to substitute a new one in its place. He predicted the destruc- 
tion of the temple, an event which involved the abolition of the whole ceremonial sys- 
tem. Thus, from the example and doctrine of Jesus two opposite conclusions might 
be drawn, the one in favor of maintaining, the other of abolishing, the Mosaic law. 
It was one of those questions which was to be solved by the dispensation of the Spirit 
(John 16 : 12, 13). After Pentecost, the Twelve naturally persevered in the line of 
conduct traced by the Lord's example ; and how otherwise could they have fulfilled 
their mission to Israel ? Yet, over against the growing obduracy of the nation, 
Stephen begins to emphasize the latent spirituality of the Gospel. There, follow the 
foundation of the church of Antioch and the first mission to the Gentiles. Could the 
thought be entertained of subjecting those multitudes of baptized Gentiles to the sys- 
tem of the law V The apostles had not } T et had the opportunity of pronouncing on 
this point. For themselves, and for the converts among the Jews, they kept up the 
Mosaic rites as a national institution which must continue till God Himself should 
free them from its yoke by some positive manifestation or by the return of the Mes- 
siah ; but as to the Gentiles, they probably never thought of imposing it upon them. 
The question had no sooner occurred, than God enlightened them by the vision of 
Peter (Acts 10). But they were not absolute masters at Jerusalem. There there were 
many priests and elders of the Pharisees (Acts 6 : 7, 15 : 5) who professed faith in Jesus 
Christ, and who, from the Height of their rabbinical science and theological erudition, 



570 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

regarded the apostles with a sort of disdain. On the one hand, they were pleased 
with the propagation of the gospel among the Gentiles ; the God of Israel was thereby 
becoming the God of the Gentiles, and the whole world was accepting the moral sov- 
ereignty of the children of Abraham. But, in oTder that the end might be fully at- 
tained, and their ambition satisfied, it was of course necessary that the new converts 
should be incorporated with Israel, and that with baptism they should receive circum- 
cision. ' Only on this condition was the widespread proselytism of Paul acceptable to 
them. " If I preach circumcision," says Paul, alluding to this class, " the offence of 
the cross is ceased " (Gal. 5 : 11). That is to say, if only I granted them circumcision, 
they would concede to me even the cross. It is easy to understand why Paul calls 
them false brethren, intruders into the Church. 

There were thus really two distinct camps among the Christians of Jewish origin, 
according to the book of Acts as well as according to Paul himself : those who made 
circumcision in the case of Gentile converts a condition of salvation ; and those who 
while preserving it in the case of themselves and their children as a national observ- 
ance, exempted the Gentiles from its obligation (comp. especially Acts 6 : 7, 11 : 2, 
15 : 1-5, 24; with 11 : 18, 22, 25 ; 15 : 10, 11, 19-21", with Gal. 23). This last passage, 
which Baur has used to prove that the narrative of the Acts was a pure romance, on 
the contrary confirms the contents of Luke's account at every point. At the public 
assembly described by Luke, to which Paul alludes when relating the private confer- 
ence (na-' idiav 6e, Gal. 2 : 2) which he had with the apostles, it was decided : 1st. 
That converts from among the Gentiles were not at all subject to circumcision and 
the law ; 2d. That the statics quo was maintained for Judeo-Christians (no one exacted 
the contrary) : 3d. That, to facilitate union between the two different elements of 
which the Church w r as composed, the Gentiles should accept certain restrictions on 
their liberty, by abstaining from various usages which were peculiarly repugnant to 
Jewish national feeling. These restrictions are nowhere presented as a matter of sal- 
vation ; the words, " Ye shall do well," prove that all that is intended is a simple 
counsel,* but one the observance of which is nevertheless indispensable (tTrdmy/ceS) for 
the union of the two parties. Thus presented, they could perfectly well be accepted 
by Paul, who, in case of necessity, would have admitted, according to Gal. 2. even 
the circumcision of Titus, if it had been demanded of him on this understanding. 
But there remained in practice difficulties which certainly were not foreseen, and 
which were not long in appearing. For Palestine,where the Judeo-Christians formed 
churches free from every Gentile element, the compromise of Jerusalem was sufficient. 
But where, as at Antioch, the Church was mixed, composed of Jewish elders and 
Gentile elders, how fettered did the daily relations still remain between parties, the 
one of whom professed to remain strictly faithful to legal observances, while the 
others polluted themselves every instant in the eyes of the former by contact with 
unclean objects and the use of meats prepared without any regard to Levitical pre- 
scriptions ! How, in such circumstances, was it possible to celebrate feasts in com- 
mon ; the Agapse, for example, which preceded the Holy Supper ? When Peter ar- 
rived at Antioch, he was obliged to decide and to trace for himself his line of con- 

* Zeller attempts to translate ev Trpdtjere by : " Ye shall be saved." These words 
can only signify, " ye shall do well," or " it shall go well with you." As to the term 
TTopvela, we think that it is to be taken in its natural sense, and that this vice is here 
brought into prominence in so strange a way, because, in the eyes of so many Gen- 
tiles, it passed for a thing as indifferent as eating and drinking (1 Cor. 6 : 12, 13). 



COMMENTARY OX ST. LUKE. 571 

duct. If he remained literally faithful to the letter of the compromise of Jerusalem, 
there was an end to the unity of the Church in that city where the gospel was flour- 
ishing. His heart carried him. He decided for the opposite view. He set himself to 
live with the Gentiles, and to eat as they did (Gal. 2 : 14). But thereupon there 
arrived emissaries from James, the man who, in the great assembly, had proposed 
the compromise. They demonstrated to Peter that, according to the terms of this ar- 
rangement, he was in fault, because, as a Jew, he should not dispense with the ob- 
servance of the law ; Barnabas himself had nothing to answer. They submitted, and 
withdrew from intercourse with the Gentiles. The fact was, that the compromise 
had not anticipated the case of mixed churches, in which the two elements could 
unite only on one condition : that Jewish Christians on their side should renounce part 
of their legal observances. We can easily understand, even from this point of view, 
why St. Paul, in his letters, did not insist on this decree, which left so grave a prac- 
tical difficulty untouched. 

There prevailed, therefore, not two points of view, as Baur alleges, but four at 
least : 1st. That of the ultra-legalists, the Judaizers properly so called, who perpet- 
uated the law as a principle in the gospel. 2d. That of the Twelve and of the mod- 
erate Judeo-Christians, who personally observed the law as an obligatory ordinance, 
but not at all as a condition of salvation, for in that case they could not have released 
the Gentiles from it. Among them there existed two shades : that of Peter, who 
thought he might subordinate obedience to the law in mixed churches to union with 
the Gentile party ; and that of James, who wished to maintain the observance of law 
even in this case, and at the expense of union. 3d. PauVs point of view, according 
to which the keeping of the law was a matter morally indifferent, and consequently 
optional, even in the case of Judeo-Christians, according to the principle which he ex- 
presses : " To them that are under the law, as under the law ; to them that are without 
the law, as without law ; all things to all men, that I might save the more" (1 Cor. 
9 : 20, 21). 4th. Finally, an ultra-Pauline party, which is combated by the Apoc- 
alypse and by Paul himself (1 Cor. 8 and 10 ; Rom. 14), which ridiculed the scruples 
of the weak, and took pleasure in braving the dangers of idolatrous worship, and 
thus came to excuse the most impure excesses (1 Cor. 6 ; Rev. 2 : 20). The two ex- 
treme points of view differed in iwinciple from the intermediate ones. But the latter 
differed only on a question of ceremonial observance in which, as was recognized on 
both sides, salvalion was not involved. We may put the difference in this form : 
the conscience of Paul derived this emancipation from the law from the first coming 
of Christ, while the Twelve expected it only at His second coming. 

What has this state of things, so nicely shaded, in common with the flagrant anti- 
thesis to which Baur attempts to reduce this whole history ? As if in such moral rev- 
olutions there was not always a multitude of intermediate views between the ex- 
tremes ! Let the time of the Reformation be considered : what a series of view-points 
from Luther, and then Melancthon on to the ultra-spiritualists (the ScJiwarmgcister), 
without reckoning all the shades in the two camps catholic and philosophical ! 

But after having established, in opposition to Baur, the general trustworthiness of 
the description given by the author of the Acts, must we abandon Luke to the criti- 
cisms of Reuss and Nicolas, leaving him charged by the first with instances of " con- 
ciliatory reticence." and by the second " with a w T ell-marked desire to bring the views 
of St. Paul into harmony with those of the Judaizing [apostles] ?" The ground for 
those charges is especially the account Acts 21. James declares to Paul, who has just 



572 COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 

arrived at Jerusalem, that lie has been calumniated to the Judeo- Christians of Palestine, 
having it said of him that he seeks everywhere to lead his Jewish converts to forsake 
Moses ; and to prove the falsehood of this accusation, Paul agrees to carry out the 
JN"azarite vow in the temple with four Judeo- Christians. But in what is this conduct, 
which the author of the Acts ascribes to Paul, contrary to the apostle's principles as 
he lays them down in his epistles ?• Did Paul ever in any place act the fanatical de- 
stroyer of the legal economy ? Can a case be cited in which he sought to prevail oa 
a Jewish Christian not to circumcise his children ? He resolutely refused to allow the 
yoke of the law to be imposed on the Gentiles ; but did he ever seek to make a Jew 
throw it off ? At Antioch, even, would he have censured Peter as he does, if the latter 
had not previously adopted an entirely different mode of acting Gal. (2 : 14-18) ? Did 
not Paul himself practise the principle : to them who are under the law, as under the 
law ? He could therefore in good earnest, as Luke relates, seek to prove to the Judeo- 
Christians of Palestine that he was moved by no feeling of hostility to the law, and 
that he was far from teaching the Jews scattered over Gentile lands to abjure the law 
and forsake Moses. 

The fundamental error of that whole view which we are combating, is its mistak- 
ing more or less the powerful unity winch lies at the foundation of the Church. What 
would be said of a historian who should allege that the Reformation proceeded from 
the conflict between the Lutheran Church and the Reformed, and who should overlook 
the essential unity which was anterior to that division ? Is it not committing the 
same error to make the Church proceed from a reconciliation of Judeo-Christianity 
with Paulinism ? But have not those two currents, supposing them to be as different 
as is alleged, a common source which men affect to lay aside — namely, Jesus Christ ? 
Is this question of the law, on which division took place, the grand question of the 
N. T. ? Is not its place secondary in comparison with that of faith in Christ ? Was 
it not accidentally, and on occasion of the practical realization of the postulates of 
faith, that the question of the law emerged ? And how then could the antagonism 
which manifested itself on this head be the starting-point of the new creation ? Baur, 
in order to escape the true starting-point, conceives an original antagonism between 
two extreme tendencies, w T hich gradually approximated, and ended, in virtue of re- 
ciprocal concessions, by uniting and forming the great Catholic Church at the end of 
the second century. We shall oppose history to history, or rather history to ro- 
mance, and we shall say : In Christ the Spirit remained enveloped in the form of the 
letter. The Church was founded ; within its bosom a tendency continued for a time 
to keep up the letter by the side of the Spirit ; the other was already prepared to sac- 
rifice the letter to the free unfolding of the Spirit. But they were at one on this 
point, that for both life was only in the Spirit. From both sides there went off ex- 
treme parties, as always happens, Judaizers to the right, Antinomians to the left ; on 
the one hand, Nazarite and Ebionite communities landing in the Clementine Homi- 
lies, which sought to combine Paul and Simon Magus in one and the same person ; 
on the other, the Antinomiau exaggerations of the so-called Epistle of Barnabas, and 
even of that to Diognetus, terminating at length in Marcion, who believed the God 
of the Jewish law to be a different one from that of the gospel. Between those ex- 
tremes the Church, more and more united from the time that the destruction of Jeru- 
salem had levelled every ceremonial difference between Judeo-Christians and Gentiles, 
continued its march ; and while casting forth from its bosom Ebionism on the one 
side, and Marcionism on the other, it closed its ranks under the fire of persecution, 



COMMENTARY ON ST. LUKE. 573 

and became the great Church, as it is already named by Celsus. Let the documeDts 
be studied impartially, and it will be seen whether this picture is not more true to fact 
than that of Baur. * 

And what place, finally, do our four Gospels occupy in this whole ? They do not 
represent four different epochs or four distinct parties. They each represent one of 
the sides of Christ's glory unveiled to one of the apostles. 

The hour of revelation to which the second Gospel belongs is previous to the death, 
and resurrection of Jesus ; it is the enlightenment of St. Peter, as indicated by Jesus 
Himself, when, following up the apostle's profession : " Thou art the Christ, the Son of 
God," He answers, " Flesh and blood have not revealed it unto thee, but my Father 
which is in heaven." The divine greatness of Jesus, as it was displayed during the 
course of His earthly life — such is the idea which fills, penetrates, and inspires the 
Gospel of Mark. 

The time when that inspiration was born which gave rise to the first Gospel came 
later ; it occurs in the interval between the resurrection and ascension. It is the time 
thus described by Luke (24 : 45) : " Then opened He their understanding, that they 
might understand the Scriptures." Christ, the fulfilment of the law and of prophecy 
— such is the discovery which the spirit made to the apostles in that hour of illumina- 
tion ; the theocratic past stood out before them in the light of the present, the present 
in the light of the past. This is the view which impelled Matthew to take the pen, 
and dictated the writing which bears his name. 

The inspiring breath of the third Gospel dates from the times which followed 
Pentecost St. Paul marks this decisive moment with emotion, when he says to the 
Galatians (1 : 15, 16 : " When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's 
womb ... to reveal His Son Jesus Christ in me, that I might preach Him 
among the Gentiles." Christ, the hope of glory to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews ; 
Christ, the Son of God given to the wurld, and not merely the son of David granted 
to Israel — such was the view contemplated by Paul during these three days in 
which, while his eyes were closed to the light of this world, his soul opened to a 
higher light. This light with which St. Paul was illuminated passed into the work 
of Luke ; thence it rays forth constantly within the Church. 

The lot of John fell to him last ; it was the most sublime. " The spirit shall 
glorify me," Jesus had said ; " He shall bring all things to your remembrance what- 
soever 1 have said unto you, and He will show you things to come." Here was more 
than the work of a day or an hour ; it was the work of a whole life. In its prolonged 
meditations, his profound and self-collected heart passed in review the sayings which 
had gone forth from the mouth of that Master on whose bosom he had rested and 
discovered in them the deepest mystery of the faith, the eternal divinity of the Son of 
man, the Word made flesli, God in Christ, Christ in us, we through Christ in God ; 
such, in three words, are the contents of John's writings, especially of his Gospel. 

* M. Reuss attaches great importance to the hospitality which Paul meets with in 
the Roman Church (Phil. 1), and to the almost complete abandonment which he has 
to endure a little later (2 Tim. 4). But the first passage merely furnishes the proof 
that the event which Paul had for a long time been expecting (Rom. 10 : 17-20) — the 
arrival of the Judaizers at Rome — had taken place. As to the second event, it 
cannot (if the 2d Epistle to Timothy is authentic, as we believe it to be, with M. 
Reuss) have taken place till a second captivity, and after the persecution of Nero had 
temporarily dispersed the Roman Church. It proves no antipathy whatever on the 
part of this Church to the apostle. 



574 COMMENTARY 02ST ST. LUKE. 

This view of the relation between G-od, Christ, and believers, laid down in the fourth 
Gospel, is alone capable of raising the Church to its full height. 

In those four rays there is coutained all the glory of Christ. What He was in His 
visible presence, what He is in relation to the theocratic past, what He is in relation 
to the religious future of the whole world, what He is in regard to the eternal union 
of every man with the infinite principle of things— such is the discovery which the 
Church has before her in those four writings. Were she to deprive herself of one of 
them, she would only impair the honor of her Head, and impoverish herself. May 
the Church therefore rather be the focus within which those four rays perpetually 
converge, and in which they again become one, as they were one originally in the 
life of the Head I 



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— No. 40. By Charles H. Spurgeon. Illustrated. Price, 15 cents. 

This is a new book by Spurgeon, after the style of his celebrated "John Ploughman's Talk," which has had 
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carry it into every household. 

Pulpit Table Talk— No. 41. By Rev. Edward B. Ramsay, Dean of Edinburgh. 
A most refreshing book (Usual price, $ I. oo.) Price, 10 cents. 

The Bible and the Newspaper. — No. 42. By Rev. Charles H. Spurgeon. A 
new book by this world-renowned preacher. Showing how Spurgeon makes the newspa- 
per help him preach. (Usual price, #1.00.) Price, 15 cents. 

Itacon; or, Many Things in Few Words— Addressed to Those Who Think. 
— No. 43. By Rev. C. C. Colton, M. A. (Usual price, $1.25.) Price, 20 cents. 

BOOKS IN CLASS B-GRITICISM— Standard 

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Macaulay's Essays— No. 3. " Milton," " Dryden," " Bunyan," " History," " Samuel 
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price, $1.) Price, 15 cents. 
The essays on Milton, Bunyan and Johnson are included in the Chautauqua Series. 

Carlyle'S Essays— No. 8. "Goethe," ■■ Burns," " Luther's Psalm," "Schiller," "Me- 
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Calamities of Authors— NO. 27. Including some Inquiries respecting their Moral 
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dian Buddhist By Edwin Arnold. This is a new and very remarkable poem. 
(Usual price, $1.50.) Price, 15 cents. 
From Oliver Wendell Holmes.-' -Its tone is so lolty that there is nothing with which to compare it but 

the New Testament. 

Idyls of the King— No. 22. By Alfred Tennyson. Price, 20 cents. 

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The Popular History of England— NOS. 12-19. A History of Society and Govern- 
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Appendix, Extensive Tables of Contents, and Comprehensive Index Included: Price of 
the History, in eight parts, bound in heavy card manila, and printed on fine paper and in 
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REMEMBER. — That this edition of Knight's History is not a hastily and imperfectly printed one, like 
many cheap books on the market. There is a eheap edition of Knight now before the public, in a single volume 
of which eight entire chapters are left out of the table of contents, and many important errors are in th e text. 
Nor have we cheapened the work by using thin, cheap paper, and printing from "second-hand " worn electro- 
types. We have printed it from new type, set up wholly for this work, and use the same quality of paper that 
we use in other books of our Standard Series. No American reprint can compare with this edition. 

Said Lord Bbougham : "Nothing has ever appeared superior, if anything has been published equal, to the 
account of the state of commerce, government and society, at different periods." 

••The best history of England for the general reader is Knight's Popular History, For a single history 
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every other.*'— Noah Porter, D.D., LL. D. 

You have struck upon a happy idea in your " Standard Series." This is just the thing to meet a pressing 
wart among students, and I have no doubt but that you will find hearty co-operation and God-speed from all th* 
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and recommend them to students.— W* H. Wynn, Ph.D., Professor English Literature, State Agricultural 
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We want the public to know and encourage these enterprising publishers in their efforts to furnish the very be* 
reading at the cheapest price. These are even elegantly gotten vp s and whtn bound together m volumes, wxUbea 
magnificent treasury of truly standard literature.— Chbibtian Intelligences, New York. 

BOOKS IN CLASS E— BIOGRAPHY— Standard 

Series. 

Bowland Hill : His Life, Anecdotes, and Pulpit Sayings— Wo. 23. By Rev. 
V. J. Charlesworth, with introduction by Charles H. Spurgeon. Price, 15 cents. 

This is the first American reprint of this interesting and valuable book. It is very popular in England. 

Alfred the Great— NOo 25. By Thomas Hughes, author of "Tom Brown's School- 
Days," " Tom Brown at Oxford." etc. (Usual price, #1.50.) Price, 20 cents. 
k is as entertaining as a novel both in contents and style. 

The Salon Of Madame NeCker — No. 28. Taken from documents among the ar- 
chives of Coppet. Collected and edited by her greal; -grandson. Othentn D'Hausson- 
ville. Volum I. (Containing Parts I. and II. of A h Original.) Translated from 
the French for the Standard Series, by Mart Stuart Smith. Price, 15 cents. 

The Same.— Volume II. (Containing Parts III. and 7V.) No. 38. Price, 15 cents. 

This remarkable book has created much interest in France, when : has been just issued. This translation 
is tlte first published z; America. Madame Ne ker, one of the most famous women of any age.wasthe mother of 
the celebrated Madame de Stael. Her house was the resort of ie ... c :t distinguished writers of the time. This 
▼olume is rich with the conversation and correspondence of these great men, never before published. 

Joan of Arc. — No. 36. By Alphonse De Lamartine. Price, 10 cents. 

The Hermits,— No. 39. By Charles Kingsley. (Usual price, $1.75.) Price 1 5 cents. 

A very excellent and deservedly popular book, as are all the writings of Canon Kingsley. None of his 
books are more readable and instructive. • 

John Calvin. — No. 47. By M. Guizot, member of the Institute of France. (Usua 
price, $1.00.) Price, 15 cents. 

BOOKS IN CLASS F— SC IENCE-Standard Series. 

Town Geology— No. 24. By Charles Kingsley, the celebrated Canon of Chester, 
(Usual price, $1.50.) Price, 15 cents. 
This book is written in Canon Kingstey's inimitable style. It treats of: I. The Soil of the Field. II The 
Pebbles in the Street. III. The Stones in the Wall. IV. The Coal In the Fire. V. The Lime in the Mortar 
VI. The Slate on the Roof. 

Ethics of the Dust ; or, The Elements of Crystallization— No. 29. By John 
Ruskin, author of " Modern Painters," etc. (Usual price, $1.50.) Price, 15 cents. 
This is science made so simple, a child can understand. It has all the wondrous beauty and strength of 
style for which Ruskin is so famous. Parents, place this book in the hands of your childrenl 

Frondes Agrestes; or, Readings in Buskin's •' Modern Painters"— No. 35. 

(Usual price $1.25.) Price 15 cents. 

The following are the contents: Principles of Art; Power and Office of Imagination The Sky; Streams 
and Sea ; Mountains : Stones ; Plants and Flowers ; Education ; Moralities. 

Books in Class G— Travel— Standard Series. 

Outdoor Life in Europe. — No. 26. Sketches of men and manners, people and places, 
during two summers abroad. By Rev. Edward P. Thwing, Author of " Handbook of 
Illustrations.*' This is a new book, illustrated. Price, 20 cents. 

IVetters From a Citizen of the World to His Friends in the East ; or t 
Europe Through the Eyes of a Chinese Philosopher.— No. 44. By 

Oliver Goldsmith. (Usual price, $1.00.) Price, 20 cts. 

America Revisited. — No. 45. By George Augustus Sala. Price. 20 cents. 

This book will interest and instruct thousands of Americans who wish to see themselves as others see them. 

Class H— Greek and Roman Classics. 

flfhe Orations of Demosthenes— Nos. 33 and 34- Translat-d by Thomas Lb- 
land. Complete in two parts. Uusual price, $1.50. Price, per part, 20 cents. 

The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.— No. 37. 

Translated by George Long. (Usual price, $1.50.) Price, 15 cents. 

•* The noblest product of Paganism. "-N. Y. Tribune. 

" As a treatise on Ethics it deserves praise less only than the Sermon on the Mount." — yokn Stuart Milt. 
•'The English reader will find in his (Long's) version the best means of becoming acquainted with the 
purest and noblest book of antiquity." — Canon Farrar. 

Tvur plan * good, decidedly good. The present public {taste for reading is diseased, vitiated, «te.— A. O, 
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Contents of the December Number of " The Preacher and Homiletic 



Monthly.' 



SERMONIC— 
God and Caesar, by Edmond Bersier, D.D. Paris. 

Translated by S. F. Scovel, D.D . 
Exaltation of Character, by J. P. Newman, D.D. 
What Must We Do to be Saved? A Reply to Col. 

Robert Ingersoll, by David Swing, D. D. 
A New Job — A Parable for the Atheistic Physi- 
cists, by Rev. John Waugh. 
"The Impulse of Missionary Zeal, by R. S. Storrs, 

D.D. 
Authority in Religion, by Rev. T. K. Beecher. 
The Good Shepherd, by Rev. H. M. Gallaher, 

LL.D. . 

Looking Unto J%sus, by Rev. William Hull. 
Evangelizing, and not Ritualizing, the Supreme 

Work of the Gospel Preacher, by Rev. U. R. 

Thomas. 
Children's Service — 
Keeping the Heart, by Rev. J. Q.^Adams . 

LECTURES TO MY STUDENTS, Second Series, 

by Rev. Charles H. Spurgeon. 
PRAYER-MEETING SERVICE, by Rev. Lewis 

O. Thompson. 
TOPICS FOR PRAYER-MEETINGS FOR 

1881. 
LIGHT ON IMPORTANT TEXTS, Paper No. 

6, by Howard Crosby, D.D., LL.D. 
STUDIES IN THE BOOK OF REVELATION, 

No. 12, by Rev. D. C. Hughes, A.M. 

Subscription price per year, $2.50. 
post-paid, on receipt of 25 cents. 



BROTHERLY TALKS WITH YOUNG MIN- 
ISTERS, Paper No. 10, by Theodore L. Cuyler, 
D.D. 
THE INTERNATIONAL S. S. LESSONS— 
Homiletically Considered, by Rev. D. C. 
Hughes. 
SERMONIC CRITICISM. 
Texts of Doubtful Authority. — Keep Close to 
the People. — Clerical Candidating. — What 
Preachers Should Avoid. — Misused Words. 

PREACHERS EXCHANGING VIEWS. 
The Play-Element. — The Clergyman's Ink Bot- 
tle — A correction. — Paste for Desk or the Scrap- 
Book. — An Appeal for Old Religious Newspa- 
pers for the Utah Missions. — Sermon Card.— A 
Pastoral Letter to Converts.— Pure Litera- 
ture—A Note from R. M. Patterson, D.D.— 
"Why I Ought to Go To Church." 

THE PRIZE TOPICAL SERMON— THE RE- 
PORT OF THE COMMITTEE. 

QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 

ILLUSTRATIONS AND SIMILES. 

THEMES AND TEXTS OF RECENT LEAD- 
ING SERMONS. 

SUGGESTIVE THEMES FOR SERMONS. 

NOTICES OF BOOKS OF HOMILETIC 
VALUE, by J. Stanford Holme, D.D. 

December number sent as a sample copy, 



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